Three Frigates and the Abyss
by markaren
Summary: A shipwrecked sailor attempts to summon herself a way off an island. Can three wooden frigates work together to reach safety, or will the shadows of the past drag them down?
1. Chapter 1

~~~Jessica~~~

I gazed down at the sandy beach before me. On it lay the product of four days of hard labor, a third of what wreckage we'd scavenged, and what little I could remember of the top-secret drunken ramblings my brother had treated me to last Christmas. Gently put, it was a complete mess.

"Do you really think this'll work?"

I turned to one of my two fellow survivors, Arthur Gladstone. He was scratching at the few hairs between his mouth and nose that had the audacity to call itself a mustache, and looked like the whiny young adult he was.

"You have any better ideas on how to get off this rock?" I responded dryly. "I'm all ears for your magnificent plan on how to sail the seven seas and reach friendly waters. Preferably without getting us murdered to death. I'm allergic to dying, it's bad for my skin."

He continued to scratch his mustache hairs. "We could have built a boat from the wood instead of using it as a substitute for the metals we were lacking."

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. "Have either you or your brother spontaneously learned the intricacies of shipbuilding in this past week? Discovered a source of pitch, gum, or other product that could be used to seal the wood together? Found a way to prevent anything more complex than a raft from sinking?"

"Uh, no?"

"Then don't suggest plans we can't carry out. The only reason we know how to build a raft is that all it takes is a bunch of wood tied together."

Arthur looked down and began digging his feet in the sand. He looked like I'd kicked him. I sighed.

"Look if you want to help, could you go find Christopher? I need another brain to brainstorm with. I'm beginning to think we shouldn't have used starfish in the flag, and I'm divided on whether we should replace them with Sand Dollars or just plain old sand."

Arthur dithered for a moment, but did leave me in peace. I shook my head and bent down to examine our work. It really didn't look like something that should be capable of summoning the ghost of warships past. Instead, it looked like a garage sale had collided with an extremely patriotic deserted island. On the other hand, according to my (admittedly drunken) brother, everything related to this process was bullshit.

So far we had nothing to show for our work. I'd hoped to get results yesterday, but it looks like we were still doing something wrong. I'd spent most of the morning changing the ratio of wood-to-sunken-cargo-ship, but it looks like that wasn't the problem either.

"What's that supposed to be?" Asked a female voice.

It took a moment for me to realize what she was asking about. "The short version is the American flag. The long version is our ticket off this island."

"Made of starfish, and with how many stars?"

I sighed. "We couldn't dig up a full fifty starfish, so I might have taken a few liberties with the design. That or it flies over an alternate United States where the Dakotas, Carolinas, and Virginias reconciled their differences."

"The dead crabs?"

"We didn't have enough red fabric for the stripes. You see anything else red on this island, be my guest to use it. If this thing still isn't working tomorrow, we'll probably try thin lines of blood before we throw in the towel."

My companion hummed in thought. "So how does the long version help you get off this island?"

"In an ideal world, it will summon us a boat. In reality, it looks like the only thing it might summon is a passing airplane."

"What's an airplane?"

"What do you mean 'what's an airplane'? You damn well know what a… wait, who am I even talking to?"

There was a grand total of three people on this hunk of rock. Just the blunder twins and I. I'm also the only woman, so who the flying hell am I talking to? Am I going crazy, or could my craptastic remake of the crowning achievement of spiritual science bullshit have actually _worked_?

I turned to look at my companion. She was a girl, check. She was wearing some vague rendition of a uniform, check (thank God it seemed to be a practical, if dated outfit). She had random-ass ship parts jutting out from her body, check. Then I took a second glance and cursed.

Those were definitely cannons. The antique kind even, the ones that shot little round balls back in the age of sail. Even worse, that was definitely a wooden mast sticking up behind the girl like some sort of wooden flagpole-tail. The white sail hanging from it might as well have had 'Look at me, I'm obsolete!' painted on it.

Well, obsolete relic from before the age of turbines or not, the important question was, "Can you sail?"

The girl blinked, her brown eyes rising to focus on me. "Of course I can! I might have run aground recently, but I think it will be easier to fix than the last time it happened."

I smiled for the first time since the shipwreck. "Excellent! I'm still not sure how I managed it, but it looks like all this stuff actually worked!"

The girl surveyed the beach behind me with a frown. "All what stuff? All I see is that rather… creative… rendition of the American flag."

I turned around to see a beach that was mostly empty. There was sand, more sand, a crab, some sand, and the flagbomination. Huh, I guess all the items needed to perform a summon were actually consumed after all. Of course, out of all the materials we'd pulled together it had to be the one we'd spent an entire day _agonizing_ over that was completely unnecessary. I ground my teeth.

Turning back again, I faced the newest inhabitant of Random Ocean Rock. "Well, since you seem to be taking this a lot better than I am, do you mind if we do introductions? I'm Jessica Stanton."

After a moment of examining herself, the girl responded. "I was not expecting this to be the result of my timber being broken up. USS Constellation, ready to weigh anchor and set sail."


	2. Chapter 2

~~~Constellation~~~

Being human was an odd experience. First, despite having run aground I could still sail and maneuver. Typically that chanced ripping my hull apart. Second, I could actually interact with humans. Conversations were much more intriguing when I could actually take part. Third, hair was weird and it itched. I scratched my scalp. Wasn't that amazing? I had an actual scalp to scratch!

Jessica spoke up. "Alright, time for a quick history lesson. It's currently 2023 A.D.. A few years ago the world was largely at peace and the United States controlled the waves with the largest navy on the planet."

My chest swelled with pride and I could almost see the stars in my eyes. "Take that Thomas Jefferson!" I yelled. I could feel my cheeks turning red as I clapped my hands over my mouth.

Jessica paused and tilted her head. "No, no, go on. You seemed pretty enthusiastic, and that man doesn't receive nearly as much flak as he deserves."

I pursed my lips, debating whether to stay silent anyways or disparage one of the great men who had turned America into a nation. The memories of my crew hinted that there was a time to call out one's leader, and a time to not waste air pointlessly raving about them. What would my sisters do in this situation?

That was an easy question to answer. I opened my mouth and began a tirade. "That idiot and his supporters nearly strangled our navy in the cradle! We understand that we're expensive to operate, but when you have pirates, the French, or the British hunting down your merchantmen, a fleet of tiny gunboats isn't going to do anything! Did he expect the Royal Navy to laugh itself to death at the sight of a dozen toy boats rowing out to face them? Then there's the Barbary states. I'd bet my aft not a single one of those gunboats could have made the trip across the Atlantic without getting swamped at least twice. I might not have had a shallow draft, but at least I could get to my destination in both a reasonable timeframe and with a minimal amount of life or death experiences!"

"Feeling better?"

I took a deep breath. "Yes. What I just said was obvious after the War of 1812, but it's good to see that America did not let that kind of idiocy grip it again. Please continue."

"Well, everything went to shit when the Abyssals attacked. You know how you are a ship, but also kind of a girl at the moment? They're just like that, but with a weird sea creature theme and a burning desire to kill people. The navies of the world stood up against them, but were driven back by a seemingly unending tide of spooky killer ghost ships. Then girls like you showed up and helped to push them back, and the war has been in a stalemate ever since. Any questions?"

The Abyssals stood against the entire world? I could scarcely imagine anyone standing up against the combined fleets of just France, Spain, and Great Britain! Just how many of these Abyssals were there?

"Did they really attack the entire world?" I asked.

"Well, maybe not the entire world. I don't think they've made a move on Nepal yet. In any case, let's move on to more recent events. My two companions and I were crewmembers on a convoy delivering food to one of the more besieged nations. We got ambushed and our ship was shot out from under us. We managed to make it to shore here where we've been stuck for the past week. We have food, water, and shelter, but what we didn't have was a way off this island. I may or may not have replicated a top secret method of… stimulating girls like you to appear, in the hopes that you could tow our sorry asses back towards friendly lines. So here we are, you interested in rescuing this damsel in distress?"

What kind of ship did she take me for? "It'd be poor form to leave behind sailors in need of rescuing."

The smile on Jessica's face grew wider. "Good. We can probably get the raft ready within a few hours-"

I looked down at my hands as I interrupted. "Actually… are you pressed for time?"

"At the moment, no. The Abyssals seemed to have wandered off to wherever it is they go after battles. Our main problems are that I'm pretty sure everyone has written us off as dead already, and we're behind enemy lines. Why, you want to take a day off before we leave this rock behind us?"

I fidgeted. Going alone against a powerful navy was always a daunting prospect, and I'd rather not be trapped in a harbor again if I could help it. There was always safety in numbers, or at least a better prospect in forcing the blockade to split up and waste effort chasing in multiple directions.

"I would rather not sail alone if possible. Could you possible try… whatever it was you did that called me here, again?"

Jessica studied me for a moment. "You're lost in a new world where things are different and you want some familiar faces, don't you?"

Well, that was true as well. "Are you amenable?"

"Now that I know the working recipe, why not? We've probably got enough wreckage to try twice more. With you we weren't going for any ship in particular, but I can try to aim for specific ships if you want. No promises that we'll actually get them though."

I answered without an ounce of hesitation. "United States and Constitution. I consider them my sister ships, but in truth they are both larger and more heavily armed than I. United States was the first, and Constitution the best of us. Both outlived me."

Jessica made a humming noise. "I want to say I've heard of Constitution before, but I'm probably confusing it with the document."

I let a small smile come across my face. "It would not surprise me if the actions of Constitution are still remembered. Of the six of us, she was the most beloved by the public. I hope there was great sadness when her time at the breakers finally came."

"Well before we start to work on your family reunion, let's go introduce you to the twins. I bet you five bucks Arthur shits himself when he sees you."


	3. Chapter 3

~~~Jessica~~~

As it turned out, Arthur managed to keep his shit together, so I slapped a wrinkled $5 bill into Constellation's hand. This led to a discussion of what a 'buck' was, and how I had never owned a deer or deerskin in my entire life. Christopher all but got down on his hands and knees to worship Constellation. Of the three of us, I think he's the one who's suffered the most being stuck on this rock. He just isn't the same without an internet connection.

It took several hours of hard work, but by the dawn of the next day the four of us had dragged everything we needed onto the beach where Constellation had appeared. Unfortunately, it didn't take long for everything to turn into a shitstorm.

~~~.~~~

The two new girls before me were clearly related to Constellation. All three of them had the same brown eyes and looked extremely stocky. Constellation seemed to be in the middle height wise. There was just one problem…

"USS United States, ready to reenter service." Said the taller of the two newcomers.

I stared at her. My eyes shifted upwards to her flag bandanna, and then back down to her eyes. Up to the bandanna, then back to the eyes. To my left to make sure Christopher was seeing the same damn thing I was, then to the right at Constellation and Arthur to make sure they were seeing it too, and then back to the bandanna.

"What, is there something on my face?" She asked.

Unable to properly express my feelings on the matter, I merely nodded and motioned vaguely towards the bandanna.

United States frowned and took off the bandanna. Her hands unfolded it, and held the flag out before us. For a brief moment, all three shipgirls and all three humans shared a strange kinship as we stared at the flag in her hands and couldn't quite put how we felt about it into words, if for different reasons. That moment was shattered when United States twisted her face into a snarl and screeched.

"THOSE MOTHER-" She began to curse. As a certified adult, I had both cursed, and had heard curses before. What I had _never_ heard before was a storm of foul language the likes of which United States was currently vomiting out.

Constellation took a step back. Christopher put his fingers in his ears. Arthur looked ready to burst into tears.

At some point in the tirade, a … miniature person… popped out of _somewhere_ on United States and placed a glowing coal in her right hand. United States proceeded to press the coal against the flag until it caught fire, then threw both the coal and the flaming banner onto the ground.

"-and that's what I think of those traitors flying their abhorrent 'Stars and Bars' from a ship that is clearly named after the nation they're trying to destroy!" United States finished.

We all watched the flag burn in silence for a moment.

"Well, now that we've gotten that out of our systems, let's move on." I said brightly. This couldn't possibly get any worse…

"So, you're Constitution?" I asked the newest, littlest shipgirl.

The expression on her face crumpled. She went from happy to miserable in less than two seconds.

"That's not Constitution." The other two ships said in unison.

"Oh, um, well, then who is she?"

Constellation leaned in. "Chesapeake?" She asked.

The girl gave the tiniest of nods, then turned away from us. "I thought that just this once, I was truly needed." She whispered. "That someone specifically wanted the Chesapeake."

United States snorted. "Just because we didn't want you specifically doesn't mean we don't want you at all."

"Yes it does!" Chesapeake screamed as she rounded back on us. "Nobody ever wants the Chesapeake. What would you know? You and Constellation never had any problems. You never had to go through what I went through!"

"Damn it Chesapeake, this isn't a contest to see who had it worse!" Roared United States. "Do you think you're the only one here who ever got captured? At least there was some dignity in being defeated by the Royal Navy, the most powerful navy afloat. I didn't even get to fight and got captured by traitors!"

Chesapeake wasn't listening, and instead took a step backwards and hunched over.

"Cursed, defeated, and disowned. That's all I am. Why would anyone ever want me?" She then rounded on me. "What did you want out of us? How can I disappoint you today?"

Well, I had been hoping to sneak out of the family drama unfolding in front of me, but it looks like that plan was shot. "Honestly? As long as you can sail in a straight line and tow a raft I'll adore you for the rest of my life."

This was apparently the wrong answer. "Me, a frigate that carries upwards of fifty cannons, reduced to mere transport duties? Are you certain you don't want to just take me apart and make me into a watermill? Go ahead and get me over with?"

I shook my head vigorously. "No watermills needed here! Just three stranded sailors in need of rescue."

"See!" Chesapeake roared, rounding on her siblings. "They don't need me, they need a ship. Literally any ship. I feel so much better now that I know I fulfill the requirement of 'literally being a ship', because the only damn thing I can do right is be a damn boat!"

"Chesapeake?" Constellation asked quietly. "How did you know that Humphreys disowned your design? His feud with Fox only boiled up to that point years after you were sold for timber."

"I had nightmares… between back then and right now. They whispered… things to me. I don't want to talk about it." Chesapeake said as she hugged herself.

Constellation took a step forward and put her arm on Chesapeake's shoulder. The smaller girl flinched back, but didn't remove the offending limb.

"Listen to me." Constellation pleaded. "The world is apparently at war and these three sailors need us to help escort them to safety. They don't need you to fight a battle for them, they just need you to help save their lives. Do you think you can handle that?"

Chesapeake was silent for a moment. Then another moment, and another, and it became clear that Chesapeake didn't think she could handle it.

United States stepped in. "The Chesapeake I knew was ready to fight and roaring to go face whatever opponent lay before her, no matter how badly prepared she was. What happened to that Chesapeake?"

Chesapeake wasn't moved. "She lost."

United States lost her patience. "You know what? If you think so little of yourself, then you should obviously know that it'll be a cold day in hell when you defeat both Constellation and I at the same time. The two of us are now officially forcing you to do this whether you like it or not, and once we're done I will personally train those sorry morons who call themselves your crew."

She then reached forward and grabbed Chesapeake's arm and began dragging her away. Chesapeake frowned, but let herself be dragged off and the two soon disappeared into the trees. A moment later United States came marching back, still dragging her smaller sister.

"Uh, by the way, what exactly are we supposed to be doing?" She asked.


	4. Chapter 4

~~~Constellation~~~

That evening, we gathered together and prepared to leave. I might have been worried were I simply a wooden hulled frigate, but between the moonlight and my draft being measured in dozens of inches instead of feet, I was fairly confident in my ability to reach our destination safely. There was just one problem…

"Get in the boat." I demanded for the third time.

"I am _not_ getting inside of anything that can give the laws of physics the middle finger." Jessica insisted.

"It's a _longboat_. It does not have fingers, it does nothing other than float on the water, and it does not disobey the laws of physics."

"It was six inches long half an hour ago! If it shrinks back with us in it, you'll have a _Honey, I shrunk the kids_ moment on your hands."

"I have no idea what that means."

"It means," screamed Jessica, "that there is no way I'm getting in that boat."

"Just get in the boat." Christopher called. "It wasn't half as difficult to convince my brother. Besides, this should allow us to travel faster and it definitely holds more food and water than the raft."

Jessica bared her teeth. "I am not getting into that boat of my own free will. You will have to force me inside of it."

With a shrug, United States snatched Jessica off the ground with one arm and slung the sailor over her shoulder.

"Fine, I see how it is. But if the boat shrinks and we get eaten by a fish, or we drown when it rains, or physics decides it isn't going to take this anymore and sends the ghost of Sir Isaac Newton to finish the job, I reserve the right to haunt your ass." Jessica protested as my sister calmly sat down next to a rather morose Chesapeake.

After I finished tying the rope that connected me to my longboat, I frowned. "How does this work exactly? I don't know how to swim." I asked as I toed the water.

Jessica threw her hands up in the air. "You're the boat, you figure it out! Apparently you girls should be able to just walk on top of it."

"Like Jesus?" I hazarded.

She sighed. "Yes, like Jesus."

I tested a foot. The water _seemed_ solid, so I took a few steps out. My feet continued to rest on top of the water, and my confidence grew. I turned around to face everyone in the longboat.

"It does work!" I cried.

Then an ocean wave smacked me in the back and knocked me off my feet. United States burst out laughing, and when I stood back up I noticed that Chesapeake seemed just a bit less grumpy.

~~~.~~~

Three hours later, I was sailing beneath the silent stars. The initial excitement of having legs and using them to run across the sea had worn off, and I was bored. I tried to busy myself with spotting the few constellations I knew, but I stopped once I realized I was confusing Pegasus and Ursa Major.

I was named after the stars on the United States flag, not the stars in the sky. I could find the North Star in Ursa Minor, and that was about it.

What did people _do_ all night? Oh yeah, if they weren't on duty they typically slept. I wondered what sleeping was like. Hm, I wonder what dreaming was like. I looked back at the longboat. The only one still awake was Chesapeake, who was busy glowering the surface of the ocean into submission.

"Hey Chesapeake!" I called. "What're dreams like?"

"I told you I didn't want to talk about it." Was her unhappy response.

"I'm not asking you to tell me what happened in them exactly, I just want to know what the sensation of dreaming is like. I've never had one before, and my crew never needed to discuss what dreams were, just what happened in them."

"Fine. It's… sort of like a daze. Things are happening to and around you, but you can't interact with them until suddenly you can. Then there are the whispers that try to get into your head and tell you who you should be, what you should do. I don't like the whispers very much."

I considered this for a moment. "I don't think I want to dream if that's what they're like."

"You really don't."

"Hey!" Called out a cranky Jessica. "Would you two shut up? Some of us are trying to sleep!"

"Sorry!" I apologized. "You should go to sleep as well Chesapeake, I'm the only one who needs to be awake. My crew and I can keep watch."

~~~.~~~

We sailed south. The wind could have been stronger, but I was a fast ship if I do say so myself, and we made a fair distance. As dawn neared I put us ashore on a mostly-barren rock, who's only notable feature was a slope that led up to a cliff. While most of our group wandered off to explore, Chesapeake pulled me aside.

"I had a nightmare last night."

"Do you want to talk about it?" I asked. This was odd, she hadn't seemed to want to share with me before.

"Not really, but maybe there is a way you could help."

"How?"

Chesapeake began to pace. "Constellation, how far would you go for power?"

I scratched my head. "Uh, when I first fought the French during the Quasi-War, my captain armed me with heavy 24 pounder cannons. It turned out that I was carrying too much weight, and that harmed my performance in battle. Afterwards they were switched out with lighter 18 pounder cannons, and I didn't have that issue in my next battle. So I guess I'd go pretty far for power. The six of us were fairly overbuilt for frigates in the first place, but I wouldn't go so far that it harmed my performance."

My sister shook her head. "That's… not exactly what I meant. What exactly would you sacrifice for power, what pain would you endure?"

I thought about it for a moment. What kind of pain could make you stronger? As a warship I typically wasn't experiencing pain if I wasn't involved in an accident or a battle. The only other time I had truly hurt had been… had been when I was broken up.

Being broken up hadn't made me stronger. It had made me as dead as a warship could be without sinking. I certainly hadn't been made stronger by being torn apart. The other Constellation, the one that was to replace me, might have been made stronger by some of my timbers. Of course I had no way of knowing if any of them wound up as parts of that ship.

It did bring up an interesting thought though. What if I had been taken apart entirely, and then all of my timber was used to make the new Constellation? I guess that would be a painful way of making me stronger, but honestly I'd rather go through something less invasive. Hm, what was less invasive than being completely torn apart, but hurt me as much or more than being damaged in battle?

There were some ships that had been modified to use steam in addition to sail. That certainly would have been an extensive modification, but it would have been worth it. Yes, that was my answer. "Well, you know how steamboats were starting to become more common? Even though it hurt being broken down, I guess the pain would have been worth it if I was being modified to make room for them to put me back together with a steam engine. Does that help?"

For the first time in centuries, I saw a large smile stretch across my sister's face. "Yes actually, that's perfect. Thank you."


	5. Chapter 5

~~~Jessica~~~

The storm caught us by surprise. One minute we were all enjoying a nice lunch together, the next the skies opened up. We would have been absolutely miserable, but then Constellation saved the day by flipping the longboat and propping it up on top of some rocks. We all huddled underneath it.

"Maybe it's a hurricane?" asked Arthur.

"It'd be a typhoon in this part of the world." I responded. "In any case, I bet it's the Abyssals."

"Why do you think it's them Jessica?"

"The last weather forecast we got before the ship sank didn't report any storm systems forming, and it's the wrong time of the year for those storms in any case. Also, everything bad in the past few years has been because of the Abyssals. They caused the deaths. They caused the fighting. I bet they even caused that lovely little bakery near my home to close down. If we're stuck sitting underneath an upside down longboat during a massive storm, it's definitely the Abyssals' fault."

"Can the Abyssals control the weather?" Constellation asked.

I shook my head. "Bad storms often come with them, but most people doubt they have any real control over it. After all, if they could control the weather why are they even bothering to attack us at all? They could just sit back and fling hurricanes at our asses."

"So this storm could mean that some of these 'Abyssals' are nearby?" Asked United States.

I shrugged. "Could be. All the more reason for us to sit here until the storm passes. Let's not give anyone a reason to think this is anything other than a random piece of debris on a beach."

We sat in silence for a few minutes.

"So." I began. "I know we already did the whole 'introductions' thing, but since we're trapped in a small room together we might as well get to know each other."

Nobody immediately complained, so I took it as a greenlight to start the whole show. I turned to Constellation. "Like I know that I know you, but I don't really know _you_. You understand?"

She looked at me like I'd grown a second head. "No, I don't understand."

"Well, Chesapeake said something about being a frigate, and I have no idea what that is. I understand that it is a word that you use to describe a ship, but beyond that I'm clueless."

Constellation rolled her eyes. "You must be Landlubbers. Frigates are the navy's workhorses. We can do practically anything except go toe-to-toe with ships of the line. United States is technically a 44-gun frigate, and Chesapeake and I are technically 38's."

I raised an eyebrow. "Technically?"

United States spoke up. "I'm riding a little light at the moment, only 50 cannons. How many do you two have?"

"I'm under-gunned as well, only 40." Replied Chesapeake.

Constellation looked down. "38, but I've got my 24-pounders again for some reason. Do you mind if we switch a few cannons? 18-pounders would be ideal, but I'll take some 12-pounders if you have any you could spare."

United States seemed to think about this for a moment. "I can swap you some 12's for the 24's. It'll make me heavier than I'd like, but I can always ditch them at sea if necessary."

"I could trade a few 18's." Chesapeake chimed in.

I stared at them in shock as the three got in a huddle and started palming miniature cannons back and forth between them. "That's a thing that happens? If you don't like the guns you're carrying you just trade them with someone else like Pokémon?" I asked.

"I have no idea what Pokémon is, but armament is typically up to the captain's preference." Constellation said.

My brain started to hurt when they started swapping miniaturized ammunition, and I turned back towards my human companions.

"I think I'm done with this Q&A session. Do either of you want to participate?"

Christopher jumped up so fast he hit his head on the longboat above us. "Ow. Yes, I do! Do you three have any interesting stories?"

"Well," Constellation began, "there was the time I chased down the fastest ship in the French navy and captured it."

United States snorted. "Don't let her fill your ears with lies. _L'Insurgente_ was known as _one_ of the fastest ships in the French navy, not _the_ fastest."

"She was fast enough to outrun _Constitution_."

"Do you know what is really impressive? When I captured a Royal Navy fifth-rate while only taking a dozen casualties."

"I only took four taking _L'Insurgente_!"

"She was French, and we weren't technically at war with them anyways."

Christopher's head tracked over to Chesapeake. "What about you? What amazing stories do you have?"

Chesapeake promptly exited our little shelter.

United States sighed. "Chesapeake… doesn't have any amazing stories. She started her career by failing to fire her first salute, became infamous when she only managed to fire off a single shot when the _Leopard_ assaulted her in peacetime, and finished her career when she was captured and her captain killed during the War of 1812. She served with the British for a bit, but they didn't like her too much and sold her to the breakers soon after the war ended."

I winced. "Surely there were some happy times in between?"

"She captured a privateer once and took a few merchantmen, but that tends to get overshadowed."

Silence returned, and brought along a bit of ominous foreboding with it. There was also a degree of awkwardness, and I couldn't take it for very long. "I don't think we should let Chesapeake walk off like that. I get that she's sad and probably feeling sorry for herself, but no one should feel sad alone. Plus, there's still a storm going on and the possibility of Abyssals being nearby."

"Let her go." United States said dismissively. "Sometimes you just need some space."

"I don't think now is a good time for that." Said Constellation. "Storms can wreck a ship as easily as a battle, and there's a pretty bad one going on right now."

"Hm. You have a point." United States turned to face me. "Alright, what are your orders captain? You seem to be in charge of this whole affair."

I sputtered. "Captain? I'm not even a member of the navy!"

She shrugged. "Fair point. What are your orders sailor?"

I sighed. "Make sure she didn't do something stupid like sail out to sea in the middle of this. Just be careful not to wreck yourselves." Then I turned to my human companions, "Alright, who's ready to get soaked to the bone and drag Chesapeake back here whether she wants to or not?"

Arthur whimpered.

~~~.~~~

We left Arthur behind at the longboat, just in case Chesapeake wandered back without any of us finding her. Constellation and United States were walking the beaches while Christopher and I searched the interior of the island. We split up, he went to go check the lower side while I searched the end where the cliff overlooked the ocean.

If it was a dry summer day, it would have been very simple to comb the island. As it was I could barely see more than fifty feet through all the rain. I was also moving slower, and had to be extra careful while walking up the slope. Thunder, lightning, and wet rocks are not conducive for keeping one's footing.

When I neared the top of the cliff, I caught a glimpse of a figure.

"HEY CHESAPEAKE!" I screamed. "COME ON, WE NEED TO GET BACK TO EVERYONE ELSE! IT'S WET OUT HERE!"

The figure vanished. For a moment I thought that maybe I had just imagined seeing it, but then I heard The Sound.

A horrible cracking noise, it momentarily drowned out the sound of the wind, waves, and thunder. It was the kind of sound that sent a deep wave of unease through a person. I had never heard anything like it before, but I knew immediately what it was.

It was the sound of a wooden keel snapping, of a hull breaking in half.

 _This isn't happening._

I raced up to the top of the cliff, unstable footing be damned, and frantically looked over the edge.

 _This isn't happening!_

There! I spotted some wooden debris floating in the shallows near the base of the cliff. Heart beating frantically, I hurried back down to the thin beach below it.

 _This can't be happening!_

I waded out through knee-deep water, searching through the flotsam and jetsam that was rising up from below the surface. Debris shouldn't be doing that, it should be coming from further out to sea rather than from beneath it. My ankle sliced itself on a rock, but I ignored it.

 _There!_

I caught a glimpse of something vaguely human shaped under the water further out. The water was up to my waist, but I managed to grab a serene-looking Chesapeake out from beneath the waves. The moment it took to carry her back to (relatively) dry land was the longest minute of my life.

I gently laid her down on the sand and began to examine her. For someone who had presumably thrown herself off a cliff and to her death, Chesapeake seemed to be in pretty good condition. She was in one piece, the ship bits like her mast seemed to be fine, she wasn't visibly bleeding, and I could see her chest rising and falling.

 _What._

Her chest was rising and falling. She'd been underwater for several minutes, and was still breathing normally. Could she breathe underwater? Neither ships nor people could breathe underwater. Well, maybe a submarine could breathe underwater, but Chesapeake wasn't a submarine. She couldn't be able to breathe underwater. Then I glanced between her gills and her growing shark fin, and revised my estimation of her ability to breath underwater to 'probably yes, those bits would do it'.

Wait, gills and a shark fin? _Fuck_.

Of course that was the moment 'Chesapeake' chose to open her eyes and locked them on me. They had not been crimson red or glowing two hours ago.

 _Holy shit, Chesapeake is now an Abyssal_.

What now? I wouldn't just bend over and kiss my ass goodbye, but what else could I do?

"Uh… how's the weather?"

Apparently blurting out the first question that runs through my head is what we're going with. Great job brain, you really impressed me with your performance there.

Chesapeake's mouth widened into a slasher grin. "I think it's perfect. It resonates with the rage within my soul."

"That sounds deeply messed up and is something you should probably speak to a counselor about. My cousin is a marriage counselor, which isn't exactly what we're dealing with here, but I could probably get you a discount. Do you prefer Mondays or Wednesdays? You could also do both if you think you need the extra time."

Chesapeake tilted her head. Wait, was she actually thinking about this? My cousin was going to kill me.

"I've seen sailors wearing your expression before." She finally responded.

"You have?"

"Several times. They were so afraid they were a hair's breadth from jumping out of their own skins. I'm right, aren't I?"

Very much so. "Yup, I'm almost out of sanity over here. Do you think we could share what little we have left between us?"

"No, but there is one thing I think I could share with you."

I had a very, very bad feeling about this. "Really, what is it?"

"DEATH!"

I ducked just in time to avoid being decapitated by a cannonball, and quickly dove to the right.

"Can't we talk about this?" I screamed as I scrambled to put a large rock between me and the demonic ship spirit.

A cannon blasted. "You wish to parlay? What is there to discuss?"

I moved to a different pile of rocks. "Yes, I'd love to parlay! I'd be the best parlay-er to ever parlay! We could parlay about whatever the hell you want to parlay about, just cease fire!"

"I deny your request and will continue to fight until my enemies are defeated." She called out as she blasted my previous hiding place with ye olde instruments of death.

"I'm not your enemy, and even if I was, I'm 100% pure defeated right now. We could hold hands and sing Kumbaya to prove it!"

Another cannon blasted, but way too damn close to be Chesapeake's. It was followed by the sound of wood groaning, and then the wooden mast Chesapeake sported toppled into the sand behind her. Never in my life have I been happier to see a wild Constellation appear.

My savior looked confused, hurt, and sad. "Chesapeake, what are you doing?"

"You shot me!" Chesapeake screeched.

"Calm down."

" _You shot me!_ "

"It was just your masts. We don't even have any crew in them anymore, you'll be perfectly fine once we repair you."

"You shot your own sister!"

"I disabled my own sister before she could go around killing innocent sailors and picking fights she can't win. United States will be here soon."

"I'm more powerful, I could beat you! I even have legs now, I don't need a mast to maneuver anymore."

"You'd be outnumbered two to one."

"Why are you protecting her, they're all the same!"

I stuck my head out from behind my rocktress of solitude. "I resent that remark! If there's anyone else in this world who is exactly the same as me, I need to schedule a fight to the death with them. This world isn't big enough for two Jessica Stanton's. God knows my parents would have a heart attack if they knew there were two of me, they've already sworn off the idea of grandchildren."

Chesapeake pulled a full sized cannon out of _somewhere_ and pointed it at my face. I froze, and probably would have died if Constellation hadn't stepped between us.

"Chesapeake, please tell me what's wrong. What have you done?"


	6. Chapter 6

"Chesapeake, please tell me what's wrong. What have you done?"

There were tears in my eyes. What was wrong with her? Why was she attacking Jessica? Why were her eyes red? Why why why why why why?

"I took your advice Constellation. I'll admit this overhaul was a bit more extensive and painful than installing a steam propulsion, but I think it's worth it. All it took was a swan dive off a ledge, and now I finally have the power I never had before. The power to defeat my enemies, to make them fear me!"

"You did this on purpose?" Jessica called out. "You didn't slip, you actually abyssalized on purpose? What is wrong with you?"

Chesapeake's focus shifted, her eyes focusing on a spot behind me. "Sister, move so I can rid us of that annoyance."

I shook my head. "No, keep your eyes on me. Why are you trying to kill Jessica?"

"Don't you see what's wrong? Why are you even listening to her? She's not your captain, she's not even a member of the Navy! She's just a human. For the first time in our lives we had the opportunity to seize control of our destinies, and instead we latched onto the first person we came across. She's controlling us!"

I frowned. "First, she's not controlling me. I've been following her orders of my own free will because she has the most knowledge about our current situation. Second, we both know what you just said was a lie."

"I'm not lying!"

"You didn't have a problem with following Jessica's plans yesterday. You also could have attacked her at any time, but waited until now. Something changed today."

I glanced from my sister to the ledge above us. "I bet it changed when you jumped. What did you do to yourself? This isn't like you Chesapeake!"

For a few minutes, neither of us moved. Neither of us took our eyes off of each other, despite the storm raging around us. Chesapeake gave in first.

"Alright, fine! I did it because the voices wanted it. They offered me power, and in exchange I would help them."

I gaped at her. "What is wrong with you Chesapeake? If the British had offered you an extra gun deck in exchange for your surrender, would you have taken it?"

"No!"

"Then why did you throw yourself off of a cliff when the voices in your head asked you to? I thought you hated the voices?"

"Because I thought I could finally have the power to win! I could finally have someone be proud of me. I jumped so I could be _anything_ other than the cursed Chesapeake, and you know what? _I still can't do anything right!_ "

She broke down right there. Her tears fell down her face and mixed with the rain, and the cannon that she held shook more from her trembling than from the wind. I slowly closed the distance between us, taking slow and measured steps. Once I was within range I placed a hand on her shoulder.

She responded by encircling my body with her arms and burying her face into my chest.

"There there, it's okay." I consoled her. "Is there anything else we need to worry about?"

"My crew." Chesapeake sobbed. "I didn't want them, I hated them, but I didn't want to kill them. I couldn't fail them again."

"So you abandoned them." Called a familiar voice. United States walked into view, covered head to toe in scores of little crewmembers. They clung to her clothing, her mast, and around her waist like a belt. One enterprising individual was dangling from her left ear, and despite the wind was valiantly waving a little blue flag that read, 'Don't Give Up the Ship!'

She came to a stop a few feet away from us. "They almost drowned, you know? That little depression you placed them in protected them from the wind, but not from the rain."

Chesapeake made a strangled noise.

United States lifted up a hand, and the crewmember dangling from her ear jumped onto it. "They've been working on this for you. I think it was supposed to be a surprise. Will you take it? Will you take them?"

She held out her hand and its lone occupant. Chesapeake held out her own trembling hand, and the flag-bearer jumped back onto her original ship. That signaled the start of a mass exodus, and for several minutes several hundred of the world's smallest sailors made their way back home.

Jessica peeked out from behind her rock. "Whew, that was a close one. Great job team!"

I couldn't help it. I burst out laughing.

~~~.~~~

Chesapeake's reception from the Gladstone twins was rather poor. Arthur fainted at her new appearance, and Christopher kept moving so that United States was always between them. Even Jessica seemed rather wary around my sister, but that was excusable under the circumstances.

My smaller sister soon fell asleep. I guess her death and… rebirth, for back of a better term, had been rather exhausting. After a few minutes of staring intently at her sleeping form, Jessica began to speak.

"We definitely need to talk about this." She whispered.

My face turned to stone. "We're not leaving Chesapeake."

Jessica shook her head rapidly. "What? No, I wasn't going to say that!"

"I think you should." Christopher muttered. "I don't trust her. What if she tries to kill us in our sleep?"

"Then we die. I barely escaped with my head when I was awake, I'm afraid I won't be up to the task while asleep."

"You think we should bring that thing with us?" He whispered angrily.

"What I think doesn't matter. Everyone seems to think I'm in charge here, but that only works as long as our three wonderful shipfriends are willing to listen to me. Am I correct in guessing that ordering you two to leave Chesapeake behind would result in us being left to fend for ourselves?"

"We'd leave you the longboat, but essentially yes." Replied United States.

"Then that's settled. Chesapeake comes with us and nobody gets left behind. It's nice, simple, and you're going to have to learn to deal with it Christopher."


	7. Interlude - President

~~~President~~~

On the banks of the Hudson River, I locked eyes with my opponent. Two forces were preparing to clash in a battle to answer a centuries old question. I did not expect to be given any quarter, nor was any expected from me. In the background the hull of the _USS Constitution_ loomed, providing an appropriate backdrop and spectator to our fight.

"Congress, prepare to be defeated in single combat!" I cried.

"Bring it on President!"

I held out my arm, and her hand joined mine. Our elbows lowered to rest on the table that had been prepared for this occasion, and we each said a short prayer to heaven for strength and victory.

"On three. One, two, THREE!" I cried.

The two of us strained against each other. Combined, almost three thousand tons of wood and flesh fought for dominance. Our hulls might have groaned in protest, our bones might have creaked in dissent, but our conviction never wavered.

The same couldn't be said about Congress's arm, and with a loud crack the back of her hand impacted and then broke through the table.

"Ha! I win!" I crowed. "Finally, after dozens of matches, we finally know which of us is the strongest!"

"Do we now?" Asked my sister, looking rather smug.

My face fell from jubilant to exasperation faster than an anchor thrown overboard. "Congress, when will you stop extorting away my victories?"

"The day you set up your own method of obtaining classified information."

"You say that like you didn't simply butter up whatever destroyer is here on rotation."

"I have no idea what you mean." Congress said coolly. "In any case, do you want to know the latest from the frontlines, or do you want to be the stronger of us at arm wrestling?"

I weighed the options. "Fine. I forfeit the victory of our previous contest, and declare that neither of us were the winner. Happy?"

Congress smirked. "Very. In recent news, it seems that the navy has delayed its grand offensive once more."

"Again? It's been almost a year since they were supposed to begin that. Everyone's been wondering when the leviathan that is the USN will get up and charge to victory in the Pacific, rather than contenting itself with limited spearheads. Is it still the same reason as before?"

She nodded. "Not enough support ships to both supply the offensive and maintain our current defenses. Summoning auxiliaries is becoming even more hit or miss."

I shook my head and began walking back towards _Constitution_. "Back in my day, if the USN had a choice between defending its coasts and striking a devastating blow against the enemy, we'd do the second every time."

"Back in our day we didn't have a chance at defending our coasts, and the Royal Navy raids only bombarded towns if they put up resistance. The Abyssals have been extremely active lately, I heard that they even managed to strike one of the convoys with surface ships. It's been over a year since that last happened. The front lines in the northern Pacific are in flux because of it."

I sighed. "Congress, you're slipping if that's all you have. I could have guessed most of that from the newspapers. Got anything good?"

"Well," Congress began, "the rumors that the navy is trying to find surface girls who are capable and willing to deploy via modern submarines are true."

"Really? What a strange idea."

"That was my thought too. Our most recent guest was one of the volunteers. Unfortunately, it seems that we have a tendency to get antsy when we're confined underwater, and out of the entire fleet at San Diego only a single girl was deemed acceptable."

That wasn't too surprising. "I still don't trust anything that willingly sinks underwater."

We continued to walk towards the wooden frigate in silence for a few minutes before Congress spoke up again. "I still think I should be the one in charge."

I smirked. "You're just jealous that I get to be the one in charge of protecting sister _Constitution_ because I came back all on my own!"

My sister rolled her eyes. "They summoned me specifically just to make sure you weren't a fluke. In any case, you haven't given Bell a single order yet."

"I wouldn't presume to know how a ship of the line does it's thing, I'm not going to tell a destroyer how to do hers. Besides, she only showed up yesterday."

"You could at least try."

"I'm not going to try and tell her how to fight aircraft when I'm still not sure how aircraft fly in the first place."

"You could get around to reading the book on flight Langley gave you for Christmas."

I shook my head. "Look, when I was put in charge here I was told that the position was basically ceremonial. I'm to let whatever destroyer of the month is here for some light duty do her own thing, and our real job is to run the skeleton crew maintaining _Constitution_. Besides, we're as far up the Hudson River that they could sail our dear sister, the Abyssals aren't ever going to show up here."

We walked up onto the deck of our sister, past two sailors puttering about and doing minor tasks. My other subordinate ship ran up to us, rubbing her hands together to keep them warm.

"How can you two do anything in weather like this?" Bell asked. She was wearing three coats and two scarfs.

Congress and I glanced at each other. We were dressed appropriately for the weather, and the temperature would get warmer later in the day.

"Where are you from?" I wondered aloud, racking my brain for some southern states that might have gotten into proper shipbuilding at some point. "South Carolina or something?"

"Yes, Charleston actually." Bell bit out.

Aww, that was so cute. She was a literal Southern Bell(e). "Get used to it."

"But it's _cold_!"

My sister and I burst out laughing. For a moment I even thought I could hear the timbers of _Constitution_ groaning along with us. That reminded me…

I turned to my know-it-all sister. "Any word on when they'll finally get around to summoning our sisters?"

The smile fell from her face. "It's the same as the last time you asked. There's still hundreds of ships that are needed for the war effort that haven't come back yet. They've promised they'll bring them back, but now is not the time."

I grumbled. They'd been giving the same excuses for over a year. The fact that they were both true and militarily sound didn't make me any less grumpy about the situation. "And with regards to _Constitution_?"

Congress gave me a sad look. "You know that's not going to happen. Our sister is the one thing the USN absolutely refuses to let go of. They've kept her for over a century and a half beyond her usefulness, they aren't going to risk any harm coming to her. It's why she was brought here, despite the escorts she needed to sail from Boston to New York City."

Anger burned within me. "And why not? They've got the process down to a science. They pump water into a museum ship until it sinks, summon it, pump the water back out, and put off cleaning up the mess until after the war. They even did studies on what it would do to _Constitution_ 's timbers."

My sister placed a hand on my shoulder. "Those studies were just a way for them to kick the subject down the road."

"They were going to do it to _Constellation_!"

The grip on my shoulder tightened. "Any hope of that died with our niece. They're still debating what to do with the wreckage."

I grit my teeth. "It's not fair that even once this war finally ends, we won't be able to be together again. It'll be the five of us stuck with a mute and invisible sixth. _Constitution_ deserves better than to be trapped like this forever."

My sister sighed. "I didn't want to get your hopes up, but I've made some noise about possibly sinking her just prior to her next planned drydock. That's still over a decade away, and it isn't 100% certain yet that they'll go for it, but so far they don't seem opposed to the idea."

"Congress? You're the best."

"I know."

We laughed.


	8. Chapter 7

~~~Chesapeake~~~

The next morning, we agreed unanimously to take a day off from sailing. The water was choppy, the clouds were dark, and I was still reeling from my terrifically poor decisions yesterday.

I don't think the others have noticed, but I'm taller now. My crew reports that my internal structure seems different, and are in the process of taking more detailed measurements. While I feel stronger and more sturdy than ever before, I can't help but shiver at the thought of the _thing_ that had managed to modify my body so heavily in the few minutes I had connected with it.

At the time, it had felt like an euphoric mixture of pain and hatred. In hindsight, growing gills, a shark fin, and several inches of height in under five minutes was not the safest or most sound decision I had ever made. Indeed, I was already being confronted with one of the drawbacks that came with my… transformation.

"Hey Chesapeake, want some food? We have plain rice, sandy rice, and soggy rice." Jessica asked.

Anger and hatred welled up within me, all directed towards the human for no other reason than that she was _human_. I took a breath, grabbed those feelings and forced them back down. Down into the smoldering coal that now resided in my chest. There they stewed with all the other emotions that came from _it_ instead of _me._ At least until the next time they escaped.

"No." I replied. "My stores will last me for weeks. I can't say the same about yours, you humans will be subsisting off of our rations soon enough."

Her mouth opened in horror. "No." She whispered.

"That food might last you two weeks, but your water supplies will only last two more days."

Jessica slumped forwards. "I was afraid of that. I'd been hoping we'd be able to catch more rainwater. How's the whole sharing thing going to work?"

I reached behind my back and grabbed one of my miniature barrels of fresh water. Lugging it around, I slammed what was now a full-sized barrel onto the sand in between us.

"What the fuck. How did you do that?"

I smirked at her. "I'm not really sure. It seems to work best when I don't think about it." I then grabbed the barrel and put it back where it belonged in my hold.

Jessica started muttering to herself, not even noticing when Arthur sat down with us.

My eyes riveted to him as he dared to shoo away an albatross. The curious bird had simply been creeping closer to inspect us. The burning feelings returned to me twice as strong, and it was all I could do to keep from reaching out and grabbing at his throat. Thankfully, United States was nearby to educate him on his poor choices.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING?" She screamed as she marched towards him.

"B-b-buh bird." Arthur stammered eloquently.

"Don't you know what they are? They carry the souls of dead sailors! That could be one of your fellow crewmen."

Arthur jumped like she'd told him the bird was a grenade. "G-g-ghost bird?"

"Additionally, it's an albatross! They're very lucky, it's good to have one around."

Arthur slowly inched back towards the albatross. "A lucky ghost bird?"

Jessica leaned down to get a closer look. "I could believe the ghost part. Reminds me of Ortiz. His eyes could stare into your soul."

"That one is a female." I corrected.

She paused. "Huh. Death and birdification have some strange side effects."

"Don't let them fill your head with nonsense." Said Constellation. "That's all just superstitious hogwash. Birds don't carry human souls, and you have to make your own luck."

"You're just jealous your captains never bothered to ask your masts how much sail they could carry that day." United States shot back with a sneer.

"That's because my captains trusted their gut instinct!"

"Ladies, ladies." Jessica interrupted. "We're all amazingly awesome, beautiful, and talented, but arguing about it isn't helping anyone. Arthur, lay off on the bird shooing. Constellation, letting United States tend to our fine feathered friends doesn't hurt anyone. United States, slap me if I ever try to hold a conversation with the longboat. Chesapeake, uh, keep up the good work."

"Why would you talk to the longboat?" I asked.

"Aside from the fact that I'm surrounded by three people who are literally boats? There's the fact that apparently birds are now people too and I think that the one over there is Sue. Damn, even as a bird she makes me want to bat for the other team."

Glancing around, I noticed that everyone was present. Well, everyone except for Christopher, but he didn't count. Bastard thought he could get away with convincing everyone to leave me behind. I might have been asleep, but my crew's watch certainly wasn't.

"I think it's about time we decided on who should command this squadron." I said.

"Why? Everything seems to have worked out well so far." Asked Constitution.

United States shook her head. "No, she's right. We need to hammer out a chain of command or we're going to have issues. Jessica, you and the twins are out because you're merchantmen who don't have experience handling a warship. Your advice will be useful, but we're the ones with experience in evading enemy fleets."

I immediately bowed out. "I don't think I should be in charge. I think I've proven that I can't be trusted to make good decisions."

Constellation put her hand on my shoulder. "We trust you."

I snorted. "You really shouldn't."

"Well," United States began, "if that's your decision, I'll respect it. In any case, I'm in charge because I have seniority. I was commissioned first after all."

"Hey!" Yelled Constellation. "I was on station here first, you can't just demote me!"

"I can and I just did."

Before the argument could really get underway, Jessica spoke up. "Wait! In the time you've been gone, the world has adopted a much fairer way to make important decisions like this. It's called rock-paper-scissors."

Arthur spoke softly. "That's a children's game."

"Shhhhh, don't listen to him, he's lived a very sheltered life, he doesn't know what he's saying. Nowadays, when two world leaders disagree on something that they don't want to escalate to war, they play, erm, perform a match of rock-paper-scissors."

We looked between Jessica, who looked supremely confident, and Arthur, who looked extremely nauseated.

~~~.~~~

"Rock has led me to victory!" Crowed United States.

"You have emerged victorious, may you lead us well." Jessica said, giving her a slight bow before backing away.

"I still don't understand what my purpose as official referee was." I grumbled.

Jessica gasped. "The referee is the most important position! You needed to make sure that they both choose simultaneously, otherwise it's unfair."

I sighed and shoved some more feelings back into the smoldering coal.

~~~.~~~

That night, I awoke with a gasp. My lungs greedily gulped in air, and my gills relaxed now that I knew I wasn't drowning. I looked up at the moonless sky to calm myself, then glanced over at Constellation. She was still asleep. Not angry, not ready to fight, just asleep.

I had to ask her. I scooted over and shook her awake.

"Chesapeake, it's like three in the morning. What is it?" She groaned.

"Constellation, you wouldn't… you wouldn't fight me would you? I don't mean like we did on the beach, I'm talking about fighting until one of us sinks beneath the waves. You wouldn't do that, right?"

She rubbed her eyes. "Chesapeake, why would I do that? I want to fight with you, not against you."

"Because I'm like this. The voices… the whispers say you'll kill me because of this, because of the choice I made." The nightmares showed it in incredible detail.

"It's up to you whether we fight or not. I won't lie, I'll defend myself and the others from you if you attack them. Otherwise, there's no need to worry."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

The coal inside of me grew just a little bit colder.


	9. Chapter 8

~~~Jessica~~~

"Jessica, walk with me."

I looked up at United States. She had her serious face on, so I shrugged and stood up. "Sure thing captain."

We walked down the beach for a bit before she spoke up again. "You had us sailing south. Why?"

Well… "The way I see it, there are four different routes we could take to safety. We could go north towards Japan, west towards China, east towards Hawaii, or south towards Indonesia. Now, if we head south and hop from island to island, sailing at night when we can-"

"Explain your reasoning." United States interrupted.

"What?"

"You picked south for a reason, what was it?"

I thought about it for a moment. Why did I assume south was the best choice? Originally it was just a knee-jerk reaction to get away from the forces that had attacked our convoy, but why did I feel like south was the best place to go? Of course the answer was the fucking Abyssals, but how to put that into words?

"Well," I began, "the Abyssals always seem to have some sort of fixation on Japan. Even while they were bogged down in the Philippines and their first push on Indonesia was faltering, they were always bashing fleet after fleet against the Japanese. I don't feel safe going north because I know the Abyssals are focused there. We can't go west towards China for the same reason, the launching point for their attacks on Japan are between us and China. Going east towards Hawaii is a long journey, and there's nowhere to hide on the open ocean. That just leaves south. While there are major Abyssal forces there locked in combat around Indonesia and Australia, there are lots of islands for us to hide on. I figured once we got close enough we could hop from one island to another during the night, and hide from Abyssal patrols and aircraft in the day."

I stopped and took a breath. Wow, that sounded crisp and professional. I must be losing my touch.

"What are aircraft? Are they similar to observation balloons?"

Oh boy. "I think this is going to take a while…"

~~~.~~~

United States grilled me on various subjects for over an hour, before grabbing Constellation and wandering off to plan our game of hide-or-get-killed-by-Abyssals. As I aspired to be a productive member of this shipwrecked society, I chose to go keep our angriest, smallest tallest by a fin shipgirl company. She was sitting on a rock maybe 20 yard off shore, in water that was a bit more than waist deep. I slogged my way to her side, then glanced enviously at her clothing.

"I don't think I'd look good in an old-timey sailor uniform, but do you have any spare sets of clothes?" I asked. I poked my finger through one of the _many_ holes in my abused outfit. They sure didn't make them like they used to, or at the least they didn't make them with shipwrecking and continuous wear in tropical environments for almost two weeks straight in mind.

Chesapeake eyed my ailing clothing. "Unfortunately not. I could have my crew fashion something from spare sail, but they are sailors, not tailors."

"You are amazing and wonderful and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise." I said seriously.

She laughed. "I owe you anyways for pulling me out of the water. You saved my life."

"No problem. I dragged you three here in the first place to save us, it would have been extremely bad form to leave you to drown." I said. "Besides, you had gills by that point. You would have been fine."

Her smile slowly fell from her face. "I don't think you understand. I was still changing when you found me. Every second I spent under the water filled me with more hate and anger. You stopped me from fully becoming a monster by pulling me out before that _thing_ finished changing me. If you hadn't rescued me when you did, I don't think Constellation would have been able to talk me down."

Well what do you know? I'd been even closer to death that day than I'd thought. Considering that a cannonball had missed my head by about a foot, that was pretty damn terrifying.

"Do we have to worry about you continuing to Abyssalify the next time you are underwater?" I asked curiously. "You seem to have waded out here just fine, but are you going to go bonkers if you put your head under?"

She shook her head. "I think the time for that has come and gone. It would be best to check though."

Before I could stop her, she scooted off the rock and dove into the water. For a moment there was no sign of Chesapeake and I held my breath. Then a shark fin popped out of the water and began to circle me.

"You're going to need a bigger boat." I said absently. Then I realized with horror that Chesapeake didn't even know what a _photograph_ was, much less the movie _Jaws_. As soon as we arrived in Japan, I was going to have to drag these three deprived girls in front of a television and marathon the classics.

Chesapeake surfaced in front of me.

"So what's the verdict?" I asked. "Do you feel any sudden urges to horribly dismember me? Any inclination towards casual homicide? Are you down with murder in the first, second, or third degrees? If the answer to any of those questions is yes, I'll go ahead and warn you that I'm the best screamer to have ever screamed, and I have a mean right hook."

"I feel a strong urge to punch that smirk off your face."

I gave her a thumbs up. "That's perfectly normal! By the way, gills. Do yours work? I think they work, it would explain why you didn't fully drown when you partially drank the Kool-Aid."

She nodded.

A grin split my face. "That. Is. Awesome! Terror from the deep, thy name is Chesapeake."

~~~.~~~

A few hours later we pushed off from the island. United States grabbed the rope and towed us south into the still dreary weather. While the winds and rain had calmed, the clouds were still fairly dark and a thick fog had moved in.

"I'm getting horror movie vibes." I muttered. "Hey U.S.! How can you see where we're going?"

"Without the sun it's a bit of guesswork." She called back. "Though I think there's an island up ahead, I can see a shape through the fog."

Constellation frowned. "We shouldn't be nearing any islands for at least another day. Are you sure you didn't get turned around at some point?"

Chesapeake, who'd been asleep, chose that moment to pop upright like a demented jack-in-the-box. "Hey guys, the voices are back, and they're _loud_."

My heart froze at those words. Then I saw a shape take form through the fog, and my heart shattered. I had last seen that shape a little under two weeks ago, when it had been part of the charge that had separated the ship I was on from our escorts.

It was an abyssal warship.

"Hide! Hide! Everyone hide! Maybe they'll think it's just an empty lifeboat and leave us alone!" I ordered hysterically.

I turned to see that Arthur was already doing his part by passing out, and his brother was frantically burying the two of them underneath our packages of food.

I heard splashing nearby and turned just in time to see United States jump aboard, causing the longboat to rock and groan in protest. "I have an idea." She said as she pushed me and her sisters down.

Tiny crewmembers began crawling out from behind her, all of them working to drag out what seemed to be a spare sail. Understanding flashed through my mind and I helped them cover us with the cloth.

We sat there for what felt like hours. The sound of the Abyssal's engines kept getting louder and louder. My shattered heart turned to dust as I realized that meant it was still coming closer. If it got much louder, it'd be because we were being run over.

United States couldn't take it any longer. "Constellation, Chesapeake, get ready for battle."

"No!" I whispered as loudly as I dared. "You'll just get yourselves killed."

"I would rather die fighting than die hiding."

"What if we don't have to die?" Asked Chesapeake.

United States frowned at her. "What do you mean?"

"What if we don't have to fight them at all? What if we just talked to them?"

I sighed. "Chesapeake, you are the exception that proves the rule that Abyssals are assholes. They don't take prisoners, they don't have mercy, and they won't let us go just because you asked nicely."

She winked at me. "Why would I ask for them to let you go? After all, I'm the only one in this boat."

I felt awed. "You're going to bluff the Abyssals. I'm so fucking proud of you!"

She nodded. "There's nothing suspicious here, just a fellow Abyssal with storm damage."

"That's a terrible idea!" Whisper-shouted Constellation.

"It's the best idea ever!" I whisper-shouted back.

United States looked between Constellation and I several times, before looking at Chesapeake. Her sister had a determined smile on her face, ready to do her part to save us all.

Our commander sighed. "Alright, but promise me that if anything goes wrong, you'll swim away. You'll dive underwater and you won't look back."

Chesapeake snarled. "I would never leave you!"

"Promise me." United States ordered.

The two stared at each other.

"That boat isn't getting any further away." I noted. "In fact, it seems to be coming closer."

"… Fine." Chesapeake said. Before anyone could say anything else, she pushed her way past the sail covering us and stood up.

"Ahoy there!" She called.

A/N: I'm not actually familiar with how hailing went in the 1800's, so if I got it terribly wrong let me know so I can change it.


	10. Chapter 9

~~~Chesapeake~~~

"Ahoy there!" I called.

The ship approaching us was enormous, almost three times the length of a ship of the line. Its iron form loomed above me, and it traveled at speeds I hadn't thought could ever be reached. Its largest cannons were carried in four large boxes, which to my surprise and horror _rotated_ to point at me. I also noted half a dozen strange tubes with cylinders inside pointed towards me. Were they for firing some form of rockets? Were they even weapons?

I felt very small. I knew that I was larger than my equivalents from the 1600's, but just how far had shipbuilding advanced in the two centuries since I was broken down? How far had cannons advanced? Was Jessica correct when she'd informed us that if we were ever attacked by anything modern, we might as well spend the time praying for divine intervention instead of fighting?

The outline of the ship seemed to waver for a moment, and then vanished entirely. In the time it took to blink a girl had taken the ship's place, and was gliding over the water towards me. Her black clothing was extremely risqué, to the point it almost didn't exist. Her right arm seemed to be covered with a smaller model of her ship form, and her left arm contained a form of cannon within a decorative shark mouth. Golden light burned in her eyes.

Everything about her clothing repulsed me, yet something deep inside my chest resonated with her. That smoldering coal of raw emotions told me she was _kin_.

I tried to think of what to say, but came up with a blank. Thankfully, the choice was taken from me before I could freak out and give away the deception.

"Hello sister."

Those two words sounded so… _seductive_ , and yet so threatening at the same time. Did she know about my siblings and the humans hiding next to me, or was this just how she normally talked? Was this an Abyssal thing, could I now talk like that as well? The idea was both terrifying and appealing.

"What are you?" I asked, a hint of fear entering my voice.

She grinned. "Can't you tell? I'm a heavy cruiser."

 _That_ was what cruisers were nowadays? I couldn't even imagine how much bigger a modern ship of the line would be.

"Who are you anyways?"

She sniffed. "Maybe if you had a radio I'd deign to share my name with you, but all I see here is one of Alabama's failures. She's the only one who'd pull back someone like you. I always knew girls like her couldn't be trusted, especially when it's to do their job right."

The smoldering coal inside me burst into flames. "I'm not a failure!"

Her grin turned into a sneer. "And what successes have you had? You couldn't have lost that mast in battle, you would never survive one with the enemy. I bet you ignored your betters telling you your place isn't on the frontlines and set sail by yourself. It looks like you couldn't even handle the weather."

I almost shouted back that I _had_ survived battle (if my short engagement with Constellation could even be called that), but restrained myself. I wanted her to believe I had been damaged in a storm, I didn't want her to think that there might be other ships out here.

"So what if I did?" I bit out. "What do you want?"

She tilted her head. "I'll admit I was a bit curious at seeing such a small boat adrift in the ocean. Imagine my surprise when I found out it had an even smaller ship aboard it."

I ground my teeth. "If you're just here to belittle me, I'd appreciate it if you would leave me in peace."

The heavy cruiser made a placating gesture with her arms. "Now now, no need to get uppity. Now that my curiosity is sated, I'm sure that I could lend you some assistance with your propulsion problem. That is, if you ask nicely."

"I have my crew working on fixing it." I said evenly. Well, that was a bit of a lie. Without access to proper timbers, the only thing I could do was rely on my foremast and mizzenmast to pick up the slack from my lost mainmast. My crew was, however, fixing some of the damage that losing the mainmast had caused to my deck.

The Abyssal heavy cruiser burst out into laughter, a horrid sound that made me wonder if her mother was a hag or banshee. "You have your crew fixing it? What a joke. You almost had me there for a moment, as if one of us would have a crew."

Wait, did Abyssals typically not have crews? Was something terrible going to happen to my crew? I gripped my worried feelings and pushed them into the burning coal, and tried to put a smile on my face.

"I thought the situation could use a little humor." I said, hoping that I masked my confusion.

The cruiser wiped a few tears from her eyes. "I needed that. Well, see you around." She then turned and began to speed away from me.

"I thought you were offering assistance?" I called out before I could stop myself.

"As if I would ever help something as lowly as you? Farewell sister."

The cruiser soon vanished into the fog, and the sound of her engines slowly faded away. After about half an hour of waiting, I decided that the asshole wasn't going to come back.

"I think she's gone." I said.

"That was fantastic!" Jessica cried as she shot upright. "I'm nominating you for a Tony award. I think those are the ones for acting…"

Constellation gripped me in a short hug. "I'm so glad you're alright."

I looked to United States, and saw that she was deathly pale. "Don't ever do something that dangerous again if you can help it."

"Th-th-thank you." Mumbled Arthur.

There was a slight pause, and everyone turned to Christopher.

"What?" He asked. I coughed, and tried to look like I was both humble yet expecting massive amounts of praise from him.

"Oh, uh, I guess you did well." He said.

I grabbed the hatred and rage that coursed through me and shoved them back down into the coal. It felt a little hotter than normal, so I tried to distract myself with something else.

"She was a full sized warship when she arrived. I wonder if I could do that?" I wondered.

"I'll take your word for it, but aren't you a little bit more worried about what she said about not having a crew?" Constellation asked. "Or the bit about how she seemed to think you were summoned by someone named Alabama?"

On the one hand, I'd never heard of a warship named Alabama. On the other, I was a little bit worried about my crew. Extremely worried about my crew actually, but thoughts that they might suddenly disappear were thoughts I didn't want to have in my head so I was focusing on other things right now! "Nope! I want to see if I can truly sail the waves again as I once did. Besides, I think it's my turn to play towboat."

I grabbed the rope United States had dropped, leaped out of the longboat, and proceeded to gain the distance I would need if I was successful.

"But your mast is broken!" Called Jessica.

I looked back over my shoulder. "I have two others that are perfectly fine! It'll only be for a short while anyways."

I slowed to a stop and began to concentrate. After a moment, I stretched a muscle I didn't know I had. I reached out farther than my human arms could ever reach, and _became myself_ once more.

For the first time in over two centuries, the _USS Chesapeake_ floated on the waves.

"Holy shit, it worked." I heard Christopher cry. "Wait, Jessica, what are you doing? Get off that rope!"

"Fuck it, I'm drinking the Kool-Aid and seeing how deep this rabbit hole goes!"

The energy was draining out of me fast. The muscle burned, it hadn't ever been exercised before and it protested at being used.

"Jessica no!"

"Jessica yes!"

I couldn't hold this form much longer. I pushed to hold it for just a few more seconds, but I lost my concentration when a pair of feet pounded across my decks. I let go, and was human once more.

I grinned back towards the longboat. For a moment, just a moment, I had been myself in my full glory.

"Shit!" Called a familiar voice from inside of me.

I turned my gaze inward in horror, and to the extra crewmember I'd picked up in the past few minutes.


	11. Chapter 10

~~~Jessica~~~

I'll admit, this wasn't one of my best ideas.

"JESSICA! WHAT DID YOU DO?" Screamed a loud voice from all around me.

Okay, this was one of my worst ideas ever. It was up there with using an air horn instead of a whoopie cushion for an office prank, tendering my resignation written on a sheet of cake instead of paper, and making a milkshake with crushed breath mints. Well, the last one was only a terrible idea because my coworkers mistook the crushed mints for drugs. It tasted fantastic and I highly recommend it. The breath mint milkshake that is, not the drugs.

"Shit shit shit shit shit shit shit!" I chanted as I barreled through Chesapeake's innards. I leaped over a something-pounder cannon and spooked a crewwoman who was dumping something from a bucket out the gunport as I charged through a door behind her. I zoomed past a half-dozen crewwomen (why were they all women in the first place?) dealing cards at a table, ran through another doorway, and found myself in a tiny room with the 1800's version of a couch and a weird wooden pedestal in it. I quickly shut the doors and collapsed on the couch.

"Oh Jessica, why did you have to do this to yourself?" I asked.

Of course, the answer was that after surviving another close encounter of the Abyssal kind, my nerves were fried and my decision making braincells were on the fritz after spending over half an hour on high alert. So when Chesapeake transformed from a human-sized boatgirl for miniature people into a boat-sized boat for normal people, my first thought was 'gee, that looks a lot safer than this longboat.' My second thought was 'I wonder if all the miniature people are now Jessica-sized?'

As it turned out, Chesapeake was completely void of any crewmembers when she was ship-sized, a modern-day ghost ship. However, when I'd hopped down below decks the world had _shifted_. A quick peek through one of the gunports had confirmed my fears. I was now inside of a person-sized boat, instead of the other way around. My freak-out had been interrupted by Chesapeake's crew fading into existence around me like they were ghosts or something, and I'd proceeded to run into the first empty room I'd found.

Someone knocked on the door to my left. I shivered. "Nobody's here!" I yelled. "Even if they were, hypothetically speaking, they wouldn't be taking visitors at the moment. Come back later once the breakdown has passed!"

There was a pause, and then the knocking returned, the kind of sharp rapping that I knew from childhood experience meant 'open the door or I'm opening it anyways.'

I sighed. Couldn't a girl have some time and space when she's freaking out inside someone else's body? "Alright, alright, don't get your panties in a twist."

I opened up the door to reveal the world's tiniest bedroom. A short red dresser was directly in front of me, while two hammocks hung one on top of the other to my right. Crammed inside were two well-dressed crewwomen in blue uniforms. One was short and wore a blue cape, while the taller had a miniature British flag sewn on her sleeve. They were obviously officers.

"Huh, didn't know you had a multi-national crew thing going on." I stated.

The caped officer looked extremely constipated at those words, while her taller companion rolled her eyes.

"So," I began, "you caught me. Red-handed in fact. You don't do anything horrifying to stowaways do you?"

The smaller one glared at me and cracked her knuckles, before smiling and shaking her head.

I sighed in relief. "Who are you anyways?"

The taller produced a stack of parchment and handed it over to her companion, who flipped through it for a moment before pulling one out and holding it up for me to see.

 **We are the captains.**

"Oh, cool." Seeing as no distinction between the two was forthcoming, I mentally labeled the shorter one Captain 1 and the taller one Captain 2.

Captain 1 flipped the parchment over. **You shouldn't be here.**

"Well it's a little late for that." I said. "The genie has been let out of the bottle, the train has left the station, Go has been passed and $200 has been collected."

Captain 2 paused, grabbed a quill and ink bottle, and wrote out something on a new piece of parchment before handing it to Captain 1. **In the future, please avoid spacial distortions.** Flip. **It isn't good for Chesapeake's blood pressure. Or ours.**

"Noted." I paused. "Wait, does Chesapeake have blood pressure? I'm inside her right now, but I don't see any veins or arteries, how does that work?"

The two shrugged in the universal language of 'fuck if I know'.

"Well, if that's all, I think I'll take my leave." I said. "It's been fun performing my own rendition of _Honey, I shrunk the Jessica_ , but I've got places to be tall and people to see."

However, before I could leave Captain 1 snatched my arm and held me in place. I went rigid, my horror movie training having taught me that this was the part where something _terrible_ happens to the cute blond (that's me by the way).

A new parchment was held up. **First, we have a gift.**

"This isn't like when Chesapeake wanted to share death with me, right? Can I pass on this? I know that apparently it's Christmas already, but can we hold off until I have a gift for you as well? Sorry I didn't bring it with me, but, you know, it's May."

Captain 2 sniffed imperiously at me and opened up the dresser. She pulled out something made of white fabric and tossed it to me.

I eyed it speculatively. It hadn't made any moves towards strangling or possessing me, so I was a little bit lost. "What is it?"

Flip. **Chesapeake had us make you some garments out of spare sail.**

Oh thank God. Did these two really have to give me a heart attack over it? "Thanks! These pants aren't going to stay on me much longer."

I stood there. The two watched me expectantly. I stared back. Captain 1 began tapping her foot and Captain 2 started glaring.

I narrowed my eyes. "You might be girls too, but there's no way in hell I'm letting you ogle this magnificent body. Plus, I'm pretty sure you're the ghosts of a bunch of old, dead, white dudes. Shoo!"

The captains rolled their eyes, but politely turned around. I quickly divested myself of my outer garments and put on what turned out to be a toga. I've never been more grateful for my Latin teacher's predilection for making us wear historical costumes before.

"Alright, you can turn back around. Anything else?"

 **We need to show you something.**

"That totally isn't ominous at all." I muttered. "Alright, where are we going?"

Flip. **Orlop Deck.**

"The hell is an Orlop?"

The two glanced at each other in the way that clearly broadcasted, 'kids these days'. They then motioned for me to follow them.

We traveled back out of what I now realized was the captain's quarters, and went down two flights of stairs. We emerged onto a dark deck filled with barrels and rope that was lit by some weird red glow rather than sunlight. Members of the crew frantically ran back and forth, some with buckets, some with various sharp implements, and some with nothing but grim expressions on their faces.

We rounded a pile of barrels and I gasped. A glowing red _thing_ was connected to the floor and ceiling by unnatural blue coral. The coral seemed to be slowly spreading outwards, and a dozen crewwomen were hacking away at its edges with tools. Whatever they scraped off was tossed into buckets that were then taken up the stairs and out of sight.

So that's what the crewwoman was tossing out the gunport earlier.

"What is that?" I asked.

My companions gave me a shrug before the parchment signs reappeared. **We don't know.**

I studied the scene before me. "How long has this been here?"

Flip. **Two days.**

"Okay, so this probably some Abyssal bullshit. Why are you showing me this? Doesn't Chesapeake know about it?"

The two glanced at each other. **Not everything. She has been under a lot of stress lately.** Flip. **We thought you could break it to her gently and inform her sisters at the same time.**

I stared at them. "This really looks like something you should have already told her. I know that if I had miniature Jessica's living in me, I'd want them to tell me when the meatball of doom started giving me coral cancer."

Captain 1 turned and smirked viciously at Captain 2, who sighed and held up a parchment sign. **It's under control, we're slowly shrinking the affected area.**

"Is that so? What're you going to do with the meatball when there's nothing left but it? That thing is obviously Evil with a capital E and it doesn't look like it'll fit up the stairs."

Flip. **We don't know.**

"I'm sure Chesapeake will be comforted to hear that there's no plan to deal with her tumor. Try again."

Captain 1 grabbed the quill from Captain 2, and eagerly wrote for a minute before holding up a sign that said in very sloppy writing. **Worst case scenario, we haul down a 24-pounder and blast it.**

I stared at them. Captain 1 was immensely pleased with herself, and while Captain 2 looked a bit peeved at having been relieved of writing duties, she didn't seem that opposed to the plan.

"While I totally sympathize with the idea of 'fuck cancer, especially its shitty Abyssal coral form', I've never heard about a doctor recommending surgical removal via cannonballs. Are you sure that's safe?"

Captain 1 nodded vigorously, and Captain 2 took the opportunity to steal back her quill and ink to start writing again. **Safer than leaving it be.**

They motioned for me to follow them again, and I was led back up the stairs and onto the top deck. Which, as it turns out, was the back of Chesapeake's head. I climbed out of the hatch and used her hair like rope to climb up the rest of the way. From my new vantage point on top of her head, I could see Chesapeake arguing with Christopher. I tuned them out in favor of saying goodbye to the captains.

"Well, it's been fun, but I've gotta jet. Oh, one last question. Why can't you talk?"

Captain 1 quirked her eyebrow at me. "Whatever gave you the impression we couldn't talk?"

My jaw dropped, and it took me a moment to realize that at no point had they ever claimed to be mute. "Well played."

Captain 2 sighed. "The walls have ears. We felt it best if you could break the news to her, talking about it where she can hear us would ruin that."

The two then turned and vanished back down the hatch. Whelp, show time.

"HEY!" I called, grabbing everyone's attention. Most everyone stared at me in shock, but Constellation had the presence of mind to hold up a hand for me to jump on. I took a running leap, and though I nearly tripped over some of Chesapeake's hair, I landed safely.

Constellation gently lowered her arm down to let me jump onto the floor of the longboat, and I prepared to rejoin the land of the normal-sized.

I concentrated on the feeling of being big… and absolutely nothing happened. Oh yeah, people normally didn't have the power to suddenly grow a hundred times their current size.

"Fuck!"


	12. Chapter 11

~~~Chesapeake~~~

"For the last time Christopher, I didn't kill and devour Jessica! Why would I want to do that in the first place?"

Christopher refused to believe me, just as he had the last dozen times I'd tried to explain myself to the simpleton. "That's just what you want us to think! You'll be after my brother next, but it won't work. I'm wise to your tricks!"

"I don't want to kill you or your brother. Look, my crew has located Jessica and they'll drag her out any minute now. Calm down."

Christopher grabbed United States and gave her a small shake. "Can't you see? She's stalling for time!"

My sister leveled her eyes at the arms holding her. "Unhand me, or I'll do it myself. You have three seconds."

Christopher's arms retracted. He turned towards Constellation, but she scooted out of reach. Lacking any other alternatives, he turned and grabbed his brother. "Why isn't anyone listening to me?" He screamed as he shook Arthur like a rag doll. "We're all going to die!"

"HEY!" Called a familiar voice from atop my head.

As Constellation held a hand up to the top of my head, I sighed in relief. Jessica was back and everything would be fine. We could yell at her for doing something so reckless and stupid, Christopher would calm down, and everything would be fine. Everything was going to be fine.

That relief turned to horror when I realized that Jessica, now garbed in a white toga, was not returning to her usual size. She seemed to realize this as well and started cursing up a storm.

"You… you've killed her! You've killed her and her spirit stands before us robed in white!" Christopher cried hysterically. "She must have had such a small and pure soul! Listen, she even speaks in tongues!"

I quirked my lips. "Just because she has a foul mouth doesn't mean the words coming out of it aren't English."

"She's just repeating the same word over and over. Is it a prophecy? Is it madness? What secrets are hidden in her message?"

"And lo," Jessica began, projecting her voice imperiously, "whence the time came for the ritual of de-shrinking, the lovely Jessica descended from atop fair Chesapeake's head. But whence the lovely Jessica tried to perform the ritual of de-shrinking, she realized she didn't fucking know how to do it and was now stuck! Why aren't I tall again?"

"Um, Chesapeake, what have you done?" Arthur asked softly. "Jessica is two inches tall and only saying the word 'hey'."

I glared at him. "What have I done? I did nothing! This is all her fault for deciding to enter me in ways I didn't know were possible!"

Arthur turned red. "Ph-ph-phrasing."

Oh. I blushed. "That's not what I meant and you know it! I didn't ask her to come inside me!"

Arthur passed out.

I grabbed my hair. "Ugh! Christopher, Arthur, shut up, the adults are talking."

"Make me!" Cried Christopher.

I let out a wordless cry of rage. I couldn't just let that challenge go unanswered! As much as I hated the coal burning within me, for once I was in complete agreement with the feelings it pushed my way. I reached behind me, grabbed one of my marine's muskets, and leveled it at Christopher.

"I can perform gunboat diplomacy if you wish. It wouldn't be my first time doing so." I said, my voice level and cold. Who did this impudent whelp think he was speaking to? I was a frigate, a warship of two great navies! Did this idiotic landlubber not know anything about what I was?

"Chesapeake!" Constellation yelled as she grabbed my weapon, wrenching it to point upwards. "What are you doing?"

"Making a point." I growled. "This is one of the lowest levels of violence I can threaten. I could level twenty cannons at him with barely a thought."

I wanted to do so _so badly_ , but some part of me recognized that that might just be going a little bit too far. You only needed a single cannon loaded with canister shot after all.

"You're disgracing yourself by pointing that weapon at him." United States said coldly. "He can't possibly be a threat to you. You're a 1200 ton warship, act like it sailor!"

"It's more like 1500 tons now." I muttered. My crew didn't have the plans for comparison, but I suspected I now had my original design from before Josiah Fox had made his 'alterations'. It was something I planned on looking into once we reached the United States, assuming they still even had any of our design plans.

"I don't care how much weight you've put on! I don't ever want to see you pointing a weapon at him again. Even if he's insulted your honor." My sister ordered.

I sighed and put away the musket. "It wasn't even loaded." I muttered.

"That's not the point." United States and Constellation said in unison. I scowled.

We sat in silence for a moment, before Jessica spoke up. "So, anyways, I know that this is a bad time, but there's never a good time to learn that you have Abyssal cancer. Congratulations Chesapeake, you have Abyssal cancer."

I froze. I could dimly hear my sisters shouting something, and could feel one of my crew emerge to scream, "Gently break it to her! We said gently!"

"I know we don't have access to modern doctors and their bountiful cornucopia of drugs, surgeries, and radiation treatments," Jessica barreled on, "but you have something even better! Your crew has assembled a bucket and garden tool brigade to fight the cancerous menace. They're totally on top of it. They're even going to use a cannon to kill the tumor."

My eyes widened. "That's not how you perform surgery, right?" I turned to United States, who had lived the longest of us. "They don't do surgery with cannons, right? They don't blow poor ships open from the inside, right?"

United States grit her teeth. "No, they don't. Jessica, what the hell did you do to convince Chesapeake's crew to operate with a cannon?"

Jessica's hands fluttered in front of her. "That totally wasn't me, it was all their idea! Captain 1's in fact!"

"Captain 1?" United States narrowed her eyes. "That sounds very suspicious. Captain 1 implies that there is a Captain 2."

"Actually, I do have a second captain aboard." I said, looking down at my feet. "I've still got some of my Royal Navy crew. You're not mad, are you?"

Having two nationalities on board was odd. I had served both the United States Navy and the Royal Navy, but the second had been for a shorter period after my capture. There didn't _seem_ to be any of the tension between the two nationalities I would expect, but I wondered what would happen when I finally reached the United States. There the British portion of my crew would likely have a chance to leave and rejoin their own navy.

"Mad, why would I be mad? I've still got two of those Confederate traitors in my own hull. I hope yours didn't have to be confined to the brig."

I shook my head. The brig? I wondered what those two had done to deserve that.

"Focus!" Constellation cried. " We can't just leave Jessica like this forever!"

"I don't know…" Said United States with a smirk as she bent down and poked a finger at Jessica. "I kind of like her like this. You look so cute and adorable and tiny. Aww, who's a cute little Jessica?"

Quick as a flash, Jessica darted forward and latched onto the finger. My sister yelped and pulled her hand back. "Ow! She bit me! Why would you do that?"

"Don't treat me like a baby!"

"Fine! I'll treat you like a fly!"

"EVERYONE, CALM DOWN!" Constellation screamed. We all paused and looked at her.

"Thank you. Now can we concentrate on the task at hand? We need to figure out how we can get Jessica back to her normal size."

I thought about it. "I managed to bring one of my casks of fresh water to full size yesterday. I also did it a moment ago with that musket. Maybe if I did something like that again and had Jessica hold onto it, she'd be changed in size as well?"

"It's worth a shot." Jessica said. "Let's do it."

Constellation lifted Jessica back up to my head, and I felt her descend through a hatch on the back of my neck. She reappeared a minute later, and I hesitantly lifted my hand to the side of my head. One impact of a tiny person later, I held my palm up to my face and saw that Jessica was carrying a round of solid shot. I moved to place her on the ground, trying not to think about it too much in the process. With a dull thud, a full-sized 12-pounder cannonball landed on the floor of the longboat.

The cannonball promptly started rolling towards Jessica, who was still only a few inches tall. She screamed and dove out of the way, just narrowly avoiding being crushed. Constellation hurriedly picked up the cannonball and handed it to me, and I sheepishly passed it off to my crewmen.

Jessica stomped her foot, face set in an expression of pure outrage. It looked adorable. "Okay, we tried Chesapeake's way and it nearly killed me in a poor rendition of _Raiders of the Lost Ark_. This time we're going to do it Jessica's way. She got herself shrunk, she can totally get herself unshrunk! I'll just climb back inside of Chesapeake, who then puts on her big girl pants and goes full boat. Then I'll either vanish into nonexistence, or grow back to normal size and leave the way I came aboard in the first place."

"Vanish into nonexistence? Any plan is terrible if it has a chance of causing you to vanish into nonexistence!" Constellation objected.

Jessica put on a determined face. "I'm like, 95% sure that won't happen to me, and if it does I'm like 99% sure I'd just pop back into existence with the rest of Chesapeake's crew once she went back to human size."

"What about the other 1%?" I wondered.

"We enter into an existential crisis worthy of the fridge horror interpretation of _Star Trek_ transporters."

Damn it Jessica! Can't you be serious for more than ten seconds at a time? "What does any of that mean?"

"It means that I'd already be dead anyways, so don't worry about it. Now, are you ready to become Chesapeake the big black and white boat again?"

I shook my head. That muscle _ached_. "I can't do that right now. Maybe later today, or maybe tomorrow, but not right now."

Jessica shrugged. "Then I guess I'll just have to wait until then."


	13. Interlude - Alabama

~~~Alabama~~~

I stepped back onto shore, feeling satisfied and slightly less bored after some light exercise. Now that my personal time was out of the way, it was time to go to work. Hm, I could either go check my mail radio to see if high command had any orders, or I could go check in on Miss Harper.

Was that even a question? Miss Harper it is!

It wasn't that I was shirking my duty. I didn't actually have a radio installed, having been sunk before the radio was invented. Instead, one of my crewmembers had been trained to use a set that was brought in for my use and installed at the base here. That poor crewmember mostly lounged around in the radio room all day, even more bored out of her skull than I was. The Abyssal high command rarely asked for anything other than status updates from me in between shipments.

Plus there was _her_. That Ri-class flagship was always radioing taunts to me over channels that were intended for important military information. At least the excuse of not having a radio onboard allowed me to delay dealing with her special brand of bullshit.

 _Did you hear Alabama? I sank three merchant ships this month. Have you had any success during your morning patrols lately?_

God that heavy cruiser was an asshole. As if my morning patrols were anything more than a stroll through my own backyard to stretch my legs, fire up my boilers, and test the sails a bit. Then there was that strange message she'd radioed yesterday.

 _Guess what Alabama? I ran into one of your pets today. Only you could be responsible for one of my sisters being a sail frigate after all._

The closest thing to a sailing frigate I was responsible for was Kearsarge, and she certainly wasn't an Abyssal. I'd checked in on her after I received the message, just in case she'd broken loose somehow. It would have been a rather impressive feat considering she lacks her boiler, masts, and guns, but she'd surprised me once before. She'd been right where I left her though, which made me suspect the Ri was just feeding me bullshit. It wouldn't be the first time she's done so.

Once again I wondered what I'd done to piss her off in the first place. She'd been antagonistic towards me from the first time we'd met, which led credence to the theory that it was because she was an Abyssal and I wasn't. Then again, the fact that none of my subordinate destroyers or any of the other Abyssals I'd run into had instantly hated me shot that theory full of more holes than swiss cheese.

Maybe it was jealousy? She could lord her firepower over me whenever she wanted, but the fact remained that like most Abyssals she had never existed as anything more than plans on paper. I, on the other hand, had been built and had made a legend of myself. She could have her measly three merchant ships, I'd taken scores and boarded hundreds.

I entered the building where Harper and the other humans lived and slowly wandered towards her room. As I knocked on her locked door, I heard the sound of various objects being moved around frantically.

Hm. It sure sounded like little Miss Harper was trying to hide something. I'd better give her a minute to finish, it wouldn't do to spoil the surprise. It was so _boring_ around here already. I made a show of pacing back and forth outside the door, hoping to sell the impression that I was impatient.

Which I was. The sooner she got around to trying to escape, the sooner I'd have something to chase down. Maybe even something to burn. It had been _far_ too long since the last time I got to burn something. I was even getting antsy about it. I pulled a lighter from my pocket and flipped it open, staring into the small flame.

There was no question of how Harper would try to escape. Material constraints would prevent her from fighting or sneaking her way out, which only left running. She'd probably hope to pull a fast enough rabbit out of her hat and run at night, hoping to gain enough distance before morning that we wouldn't find them. It was a good plan, but I had an ace up my sleeve. It'd be a fun game of cat and mouse, but I'd win it.

The door opened and I quickly snapped the lighter shut. I must have lost track of time there, I hadn't meant to let Harper see it yet. Oh well. I sauntered into the room and made a brief show of glancing around suspiciously. There wasn't anything incriminating visible, which only proved that she wasn't an idiot.

She knew I was suspicious of her now, so the best way to play this would be to make her think I was suspicious of something else.

"So who's the lucky guy?" I asked, debating the merits of making a show of searching behind furniture and in the closet and bathroom. I decided against it, there was too much chance I'd spook her or actually come across what she was hiding.

Whatever Harper had been expecting, it wasn't that. She sputtered in denial and confusion for a moment, looking somewhat worried. Huh, was she actually seeing someone? As long as it didn't interfere with her duties or escape attempt, I really didn't have a problem with it.

"Is it Aldermann?" I asked, now vaguely interested.

"It's no one!" She denied. Then she processed what I'd said. "Wait, Aldermann? He thinks I'm a traitor, the two of us can't be left alone in the same room together."

I shrugged. "The best relationships always have a little danger in them. Was it Garibaldi then?"

"He's married!"

"So? His wife doesn't need to know, its not like she's here. Well if it's not Aldermann, and it's not Garibaldi, is it Bikani?"

Harper looked a little green. "He's a teenager! I'm forty!"

Ugh. "You humans obsess over age far too much. I'm 4 going on 161, depending on how you count it, and I wouldn't let that stop me."

I mentally went through the list of the other humans here. There were only a dozen, it couldn't be that hard. Oh, what about the new girl? "Was it Sue? I'm not into redheads myself, but she's _hot_."

Before Harper could respond, we were interrupted by a cacophony of muffled thumps and crashes. I eyed the closet door where the noises were coming from, and heard a faint but female voice call out, "I'm okay!"

Well now. Sue hadn't been here for more than four days. "You move fast." I commented.

"I'm not dating Sue. We're just friends."

I'll never know how she said that with a straight face. "If that's what you want to call it."

Harper sighed in frustration and exasperation. "Alabama, what do you want?"

That was a loaded question. I wanted her and the others to run already, to give me a reason to stretch my legs again. I wanted to fight Kearsarge over and over and over again, and to beat her black and blue every time. I wanted to be let loose on Yankee shipping just once more.

Of course, that wasn't what she meant. She wanted to know why I was in this room right now. Obviously the real answer was checking up on her progress in escaping, but I did have a cover story in mind. "Submarines have been taking a heavy toll on supply lines lately, so command was really happy with the transports you scrounged up. In fact, they were so happy they decided to ignore the fact that we're consistently falling behind on projected acquisitions."

"You know that I can't control what ships the USN has already summoned to its side, it's a guessing game at best. Maybe if you let me try to pull from one of the world's many other nations I would-"

Oh no, the Yankees weren't getting out of it that easy. "Not until we've tried every Liberty, Victory, C and T class they ever had or planned."

She glowered at me.

Well, I'd done most of what I came here for. Harper would probably be making her move within the month, and I'd finally have something to do. I pulled the lighter out of my pocket and tossed it to her. "Here. I hope you like it."

"Why do you insist on giving me trinkets whenever we meet?" She asked.

I shrugged. "Maybe it's because without a paycheck I don't have any other way of paying you. Give it to someone else if you don't want it."

Honestly I didn't know what drove me to do it. Maybe I just liked sharing my prizes, or some part of me was secretly a blockade runner that thrived on bringing back shiny but useless junk. It was just something I did.

I left her to do whatever it was she was doing with Sue, and slowly walked to the radio room. I took baby steps as I got closer to give myself a little bit more time without having to deal with Ri's bullshit. Despite my procrastination, I did eventually enter the room.

"Any new messages since I last came by?" I asked.

My crewmember gave me a thumbs up, and waved two small sheets of paper.

"Any new messages from our special ally?" I asked more hesitantly.

She shook her head, and I breathed a sigh of relief. I delicately took the papers from her and examined them.

Huh, an Abyssal frigate had wandered past the garrison fleet and landed on the other side of the island an hour ago. I guess Ri wasn't yanking my chain after all. Though I did wonder why there wasn't more information, my destroyers were supposed to stop and have a chat with any incoming Abyssal before they reached the island.

The explanation was in the second message. Apparently the destroyers had been pre-occupied with a possible submarine contact, and had decided that dealing with a possible enemy was more important that meeting with a friendly. I couldn't really fault them for it, no matter how much more difficult it made my life.

I'd better go intercept that frigate before she met the locals and was all over them like Longstreet over Pope. Nobody messed with my prisoners.


	14. Chapter 12

~~~Jessica~~~

Do you know what the worst part about being small is? Everything is trying to kill you.

First, there was that goddamn cannonball. Then Constellation knocked me overboard when she rolled her shoulders, the same shoulders I was sitting on. Then a bird tried to snap me up and have me for dinner. Even Arthur got in on the action when he nearly kicked me to death in his sleep. Arthur fucking Gladstone nearly killed me! This is the same guy who's afraid of his own goddamn shadow! Honestly this was a new low in my life…

Hopefully it would be over in the next few seconds. I'd spent a day and a night being two inches tall, and Chesapeake was finally ready to try again.

"I'm ready!" I called from Chesapeake's Gun Deck.

The world around me _shifted_ , and Chesapeake's crew began to fade out of existence. I, thankfully, did not follow them. Well, that was one terrifying possibility crossed out, let's see if my luck holds.

I glanced around and confirmed that I had grown with my surroundings. That was a second terrifying possibility crossed out.

"Hurry up! She can't hold this for long!" Called a voice from far away.

I climbed up the stairs to the top deck (or the Spar Deck, according to Captain 2), and jumped over the side. I wasn't the most graceful diver or swimmer, but my lessons at the neighborhood pool safely guided me back to the longboat.

"It worked!" Constellation yelled as she pulled me aboard. There was a smile on her face that shined like the sun. "We turned you back to normal!"

I hated to be the one to put a damper on her enthusiasm. "Maybe, but I'm not out of danger yet. For all we know I'm half-miniature person now, and I'll shrink once Chesapeake becomes a girl again."

"I don't think that will happen, considering Chesapeake's already on her way back." United States said, raising her arm to point.

I turned around and sure enough, there was no sign of a large wooden frigate in the sea near us. There was, however, a shark fin sticking out the water that was steadily coming closer.

I glomped Constellation. "Did you hear that! I've been turned back to normal!"

We all laughed and cheered. Especially Christopher, who had maintained the belief that I had been transformed into some sort of supernatural creature, doomed to forever crew Chesapeake until the end of time.

I've said it before, but of us three humans, Christopher has suffered the most from being cut-off from society.

Then Chesapeake pulled herself onto the longboat and dropped the A-word. "I saw several Abyssal ships in the distance."

I cursed. Of course the fucking Abyssals had to ruin my day. "Did they see you?"

"If I could see them, they could also see me." She then pointed off into the distance. "There's an island over in that direction, we could hide there until nightfall. We could slip past them then."

United States nodded. "Good plan. Constellation, you're on towing duty. Chesapeake, be prepared to take over towing at a moment's notice. Everyone else, eyes on the horizon."

~~~.~~~

In the end, approaching Abyssal ships forced Chesapeake to tow us for the final stretch of ocean. Thankfully they didn't come too close and we landed safely.

It was a nice upgrade from our previous two island homes. In fact, it was sort of a combination of the two. It had the dense vegetation and trees of the island we'd landed on after the shipwreck, and the tall central hill of our previous stop. The exact size of this island was hidden by the trees and the hill, but it was at least several miles long.

"I'm going exploring." I decided. "That hill should give me a good view of the surrounding ocean, and I want to see if we can figure out where the Abyssals are at before we set sail tonight."

United States shrugged. "Don't go too far. We wouldn't want you to get lost, would we? This island is significantly bigger than the last two."

She then lifted her hand and made a shooing motion. I turned and began my hike.

"Wait!"

I looked back to see Chesapeake hurrying to catch up to me. "I'm coming with you. I don't trust you to stay safe on your own."

"I can take care of myself." I defended.

She quirked her lips. "Yesterday your poor judgement caused you to shrink to two inches tall. Three days ago I would have killed you if Constellation hadn't been nearby."

"Hey! Both of those had good outcomes! You said yourself that if I hadn't found you when I did you would have probably gone full Abyssal. Nobody wants to go full Abyssal."

She raised her eyebrow. "Remind me what the good outcome of yesterday's fiasco was?"

"Uh," I began, racking my brains, "you received an important medical diagnosis?"

Chesapeake stared at me like I was an idiot. "You told me I had _Abyssal cancer_."

I nodded sagely. "Which was something you definitely needed to know. You didn't know before, now you do. Therefore, it's a good thing! Now if you'll excuse me, I don't need a babysitter to take an enthusiastic walk through the woods."

"Is that what you think?" Asked Constellation. "I put forth the motion that Jessica is no longer allowed to go off by herself."

Chesapeake looked straight into my eyes. "Seconded."

"What? You can't vote on something like that! It's my own goddamn life!" I protested.

"Thirded." Arthur called out weakly. He ducked behind his brother as I glared at him.

"United States, you can't let this happen! This isn't a democracy, it's a squadron with you at the helm! You even seemed fine with me going alone a moment ago."

United States looked up, a grave expression on her face. "My sister has laid out a good argument. The motion passes."

I groaned, then turned around and stomped off into the woods. Chesapeake dutifully followed behind me.

~~~.~~~

"You know, you really don't need to follow me around. I've survived for twenty-eight years without you, I think I can handle an hour or two by myself." I commented as I picked my way up the hill.

Chesapeake hummed noncommittally. "Even for a sailor, you are… unusually reckless and headstrong. Those can be good traits in a captain, but you lack the necessary discipline. How did you become a sailor anyways? You don't seem like someone who grew up learning the trade."

Well, looks like the world's friendliest Abyssal was observant. "I may have… incensed a few of my previous employers."

"Incensed?"

I concentrated on the ground in front of me. "I totally thought turning in my resignation on a sheet of chocolate cake instead of a sheet of paper was a respectful and delicious way to let my boss know I was leaving. I didn't know he was allergic!"

Chesapeake raised an eyebrow. "That single incident exiled you to a life at sea?"

My face felt like it was on fire. "There may have been false allegations of drug use stemming from a 'suspicious white powder' that was really just crushed breath mints. Also, I may have given my first boss a heart attack with an airhorn prank.

"You _may_ have given him a heart attack?"

I rolled my eyes. "Okay, fine. I totally gave him a heart attack. It was an accident, and he was fine in the end. He didn't have to form a cabal with my other two ex-employers and haunt all my future job applications."

Chesapeake snorted. "At least I'm not the only one here who's made bad decisions."

Ouch. You know you've screwed up in life when you have an Abyssal sympathizing with you about poor life choices.

We reached the top of the hill, and my eyes widened.

"What is this?" Chesapeake asked.

"An airfield." I answered, gazing critically at the lone building near the runway. "Aircraft use them to take off."

"What's that structure for?"

"Hopefully it was for storing aircraft. If we're lucky there might still be a spare radio or something. I'm honestly surprised the Abyssals left this standing." I explained.

The two of us walked up to the rear of the hangar. The Abyssals had bombarded the shit out of most of the pre-existing infrastructure on islands they'd taken, so how had they missed this? Had it been abandoned and consequently ignored? Had they overlooked it? Had we simply arrived before the scheduled demolition via naval artillery?

I threw open the door.

My heart skipped a beat and the blood drained from my face. Lined up before me were a dozen large white spheres. They seemed inert, thankfully, but I had no idea what would change that. Chesapeake and I glanced at each other, slowly closed the door, and backed away. Then we proceeded to run as fast as we could.

"What were those?" Chesapeake asked as we tore down the hillside.

"Aircraft." I huffed back.

"They looked very different from what you've described."

"Abyssal aircraft." I amended. "We've got to get back to the others now that we know there is an Abyssal base on this island. Who knows what else is lurking here besides aircraft?"

I nearly jumped out of my skin as a shrill voice with a hint of a Californian accent cried out, "I've found you!"

I spun to the right to see a tweenaged girl bearing down on us, lugging a cannon under her arms. She skidded to a halt about thirty feet away.

"I've come to end your reign of terror Alabama!" She said. I yelped as the weapon, a much more modern one than anything my frigate friends carried, was leveled at my torso. The girl then swiveled to point the weapon at Chesapeake. "Yours as well, Abyssal frigate! The SS Stephen Hopkins demands justice!"


	15. Chapter 13

~~~Stephen Hopkins~~~

This was it! It was the moment of truth, where the ten minutes or so of planning that had gone into this operation would pay off! I would smite Alabama and her Abyssal toad and return to Miss Harper in victory! We'd sneak past their fleet tonight and no one would have to float to Brazil.

God I hoped my poor survivors had made it to Brazil. It was a long way for a lifeboat to travel… I shook my head to clear it of those Bad Thoughts from a century ago. Focus on the now Hopkins!

"You're a steam merchantman?" Asked the Abyssal frigate. She wore a constipated expression, like she didn't believe this was happening.

I nodded eagerly. "Yes! I am a steam screw, and with it I will end you!"

Wait, that wasn't what I wanted to say. "Well actually I'll be using my 4-inch gun, but prepare to meet your fate!"

"We surrender!" Screamed Alabama, her hands up in the air.

"I accept!" I yelled as I rotated to point my gun at her, ready to answer her… surrender?

"Wait, you/we surrender?" The Abyssal frigate and I asked at the same time.

Alabama's head bobbed up and down. "Yes, we surrender. We're raising the white flag, giving up the ghost, throwing in the towel-"

"Fantastic!" I shouted. "With that, good has triumphed over evil! I'll just, uh…"

What should I do with them? Miss Harper had insisted that I… that I _ambush_ Alabama and the Abyssal, to not give them the chance to fight back. Of course I hadn't really followed through on the ambush part, ambushes led to people having to float to Brazil, which was something I didn't want to inflict on anyone and now I'm sad again.

I shook my head to clear it. The Abyssal and Alabama were both defeated. I... guess I could take them back to Miss Harper? She would probably know what to do with them.

"There's no way I'm surrendering to a _merchant vessel!"_ The Abyssal protested.

"Oh, so is the fight back on?" I asked, rotating my weapon to face her. She didn't look too dangerous, but neither had my killer a century ago and why do I keep bringing up sad thoughts?

"No we're not!" Alabama repeated. "Chesapeake, we've already agreed that fighting steel ships with advanced cannons will only end in our deaths."

"I could never live down surrendering to a merchant vessel. They aren't heavily armed, I could take one in my sleep." The Abyssal now known as Chesapeake protested.

"I have one 4-inch gun, two 37-milimeter cannons, and half a dozen machine guns!" I helpfully supplied. "I was armed so that I could have a chance to fight back against raiders, like you Alabama. You won't get to burn this ship!"

Alabama sighed. "That's another thing. I'm not Alabama, I'm Jessica."

Oh that was a relief, I'd feared I'd be the only one who felt like that. "I totally understand you. I guess I could try to make Stephen work, but it just doesn't feel like _me_. I haven't come up with anything good yet, so call me Hopkins for now. I think I'll keep it for my last name."

"What are you talking about?"

I tilted my head. "I thought you were complaining about your name. Stephen Hopkins signed the Declaration of Independence, which I guess was pretty cool, but his name doesn't really feel like it's a fit for me. I'll still use it when I'm introducing what ship I am, like I did to you earlier, but in casual conversation it isn't what I want to be called. I don't really feel like a Stephen or even a Stephanie. Alabama seems like a good name for a ship though, maybe even an okay name for a person as well, but if you don't want to be called that I won't force the issue."

Jessica shook her head left and right. "No, I mean I'm not called Alabama because I never was Alabama! I've always been Jessica."

I thought about it for a moment. "I won't let your lies trick me! Miss Harper warned me of your cunning!"

"I'm not lying! I'm not Alabama, and I'm not a shipgirl. I'm 100% human."

Hm. Maybe she wasn't lying after all? I squinted at her. "Are you sure you're a human?" I asked. She did sound different from that time I'd eavesdropped on Alabama from the safety of the closet, but that could be a trick. I hadn't been able to get a good read on what Alabama _felt_ like from that encounter, but Jessica certainly _felt_ different from Miss Harper, and _felt_ slightly different from Chesapeake. So if she wasn't human, and wasn't an Abyssal, that obviously left her to be a shipgirl.

She looked offended. "Yes I'm sure! Do I look like a boat to you?"

I raised an eyebrow. "I'm a Liberty ship, but I look pretty human right now. Are you sure you aren't secretly a shipgirl? Maybe some shipgirls think they're humans. Imagine it, they live out their lives just like every other human. They have a husband, a job, and 56 children, then one day on their way to work-"

 _"_ _56 children?"_ Jessica asked with a squeak.

"I'm from a big family." I dismissed. I had over 200 siblings and at least a few hundred more on the way. Surely human families weren't that much smaller? "Anyways, one day they're driving to work and BAM! Ship puberty!"

Jessica didn't look convinced. "I think people would have noticed if spontaneously changing into a shipgirl was a thing that happened during the morning commute."

"Well maybe it happens in their sleep." I said with a shrug. "No one could see it if they were asleep."

Wait a minute, wasn't I supposed to be doing something? Oh yeah, I needed to take these two prisoner. "Well, it's been a really fun chat, but we really should be going. Come on!"

"I'm not going anywhere with you." Chesapeake protested.

I jiggled my gun around, but kept it pointed at her. "The Mark 9 says you have to!"

Chesapeake growled and pulled out her own cannon. I immediately prepared for a fight. Of course, since I was already prepared for a fight, this meant that I simply double-checked my aim and hoisted up some extra ammunition for my anti-aircraft guns. Those shells would probably mulch the two wooden vessels before me.

Yup, still on target, and now there was a pile of extra ammo just waiting to be used.

"Wait, Chesapeake please don't do this!" Jessica said, grabbing onto the Abyssal's shoulder and giving it a shake. "You can't beat her, her guns would shred you to bits! Let's just go with her for now."

"I'm not surrendering to a merchant vessel." Chesapeake replied, spitting out the term merchant vessel like it was poison.

"Chesapeake, do you really want to fight her, or is it that _thing_ inside of you that wants you to fight her?"

The Abyssal flinched like she'd been slapped.

"Oh thank God that guess was correct." Jessica muttered.

"It… it's harder to ignore the urges with her. She's not related to me, I can't simply imagine her as kin. But please, please don't make me surrender to a merchantmen."

"What would your sisters want you to do? Be humiliated or die?"

Chesapeake grit her teeth, but stowed away her cannon. "Fine."

Aww, that was so sweet. It also went against everything Miss Harper had told me about Abyssals and Alabama, so we were going to have a Fun Chat with her about that later. "Alright, chop chop! Let's go."

~~~.~~~

We'd made it about halfway back to the Headquarters of the Rebellion (also known as Miss Harper's living quarters) when the two prisoners started interrogating me.

"This is the second time we've run into someone who's mentioned Alabama. Who is she anyways?" Asked Chesapeake.

"She's some sort of Civil War bigshot who sold her soul to the Abyssals. She runs this place." I said, repeating what Miss Harper had told me, minus the profanity.

I understood profanity's place in the English language, I had been crewed by sailors after all. But profanity was like sprinkles. Too little and you didn't have any pizzazz, too much and you just had, well, too much.

"She's also probably right next to you, so you could just ask her." I continued, gesturing towards Jessica.

"Hold on, hold on." Said Jessica. "So Alabama is a shipgirl who is working for the Abyssals?"

"Yes you are." I replied.

"A shipgirl, working for the Abyssals?"

"Uh huh."

"A shipgirl? Working for the Abyssals?"

I sighed. "Look, this was fun at first, but even if you aren't Alabama you have an Abyssal right next to you that you seem pretty okay with."

Jessica glanced at Chesapeake speculatively. "Chesapeake is less of an Abyssal and more of a shipgirl going through her midlife crisis."

Well. That was a heck of a midlife crisis.

Chesapeake made a strangled noise.


	16. Chapter 14

~~~Jessica~~~

"We need to eventually get away and contact the others." I whispered to Chesapeake. "We never did get to warn them about the Abyssals on the island, and they're probably going to start searching for us soon."

"Well that sounds like a great idea." Chesapeake whispered back in the most passive-aggressive tone she could muster. "If we hadn't surrendered to a merchantmen, we might even be able to carry it out."

I bristled. "Look, I know it pisses you off, but we don't have a choice. We _can't_ fight her, not without getting ourselves killed. We can't help the others if we're dead."

"Are you planning something?" Hopkins asked, glancing between the two of us suspiciously. One of her hands softly stroked the barrel of her weapon.

"Uh, no!" I said in a cheery voice. "We were just talking about how obvious it was that we had to surrender to you."

"Oh. Carry on!" She said with a smile and a thumbs up. God, if only I was that happy. I could probably walk on sunshine all the way back to the states, and still have enough left over to grow a tree.

"Until then," I continued whispering, "I'm thinking we should use this as an opportunity. I don't know what Hopkins or whoever Miss Harper is are doing this far into Abyssal territory, but maybe they could help us escape."

"She's marching us at cannon point!" Chesapeake protested.

I nodded vigorously. "Exactly! They know you're an Abyssal and they think I work for one. How would you act if you ran into your greatest enemy casually mucking about? The fact that she hasn't killed us is saying something."

"It says that she accosted us! I am a warship of the United States Navy, she's either committed treason or an act of war."

"Casper, no matter how friendly you are, you're still a spooky ghost ship. Just give us a chance to prove to her that I'm human and that, contrary to appearances, you're not evil. If that doesn't work, then we can focus on escaping."

Chesapeake didn't answer me for a moment. Hopefully she was thinking on my argument, and not stuck trying to figure out who Casper was. As we traveled in silence, the vegetation became less dense and it became easier to walk.

Finally, she spoke up. "Fine. I will prepare a boarding party though, there's little an armed merchantmen can do in the face of determined boarders."

Oh no, that's a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad idea. "She has machine guns. Your crew would get slaughtered."

"I doubt six guns, no matter how well-machined, would stop me." Chesapeake said with a straight face.

God, Chesapeake didn't know what machine guns were. Why hadn't I dragged the other two old-timers to the technology info-dump I'd given United States?

Before I could try to convince Chesapeake just how dangerous those six 'well-machined' guns would be, Hopkins threw an arm out in front of us. "We're here! Well, almost, we still have to go inside."

'Here' being a dilapidated compound. At one point it had probably been a small resort or a multi-family vacation home. Now the lawn was overgrown, several windows were shattered, and the entire place had an aura of sadness and depression hanging off of it. It sort of looked like a haunted house, one in its early stages before the strange deaths started happening, but after the curse/murder/whatever had taken ahold of the place.

"Alright!" Continued Hopkins. "Ground rules! Alabama, you aren't in charge anymore, so don't try to order anyone around."

I had to ask. I always had to ask. "What happens if I do?"

Hopkins paused to think about it, rubbing her chin. "Uh, I guess if I have to discipline you I'd best start by disabling your engines."

I tilted my head at her. I was rather lacking in the engine department.

"I'll shoot your legs." She clarified with a grin.

I paled, my heart skipped a beat, and my throat let out a high-pitched squeak. "I need those to move!"

"There there." Hopkins said it what she probably thought was a comforting manner. "If you aren't Alabama, then you don't have any authority to be ordering anyone around and you won't have to worry about it. Besides, you can always repair them later if you are Alabama."

"Flawless logic." Chesapeake muttered.

Really Chesapeake? She threatens to shoot off my lovely, beautiful, most ambulant of legs, and this is all the sympathy I get? You can't repair legs that are just _gone_ , which is what would happen if I was hit by, and managed to survive, naval artillery _._

Wait, Chesapeake and the other girls were new to the whole human bodies thing. They probably remembered that their crew couldn't grow back legs as a human being, but did that mean they realized they couldn't grow legs back as a human being? How much of a ship were they in human form? I guess a ship could get half of it blown off and still be repaired if you were willing to foot the obnoxiously high bill, could the same be said of the girls? If so, how did that translate to their human bodies? Could Chesapeake grow lost limbs by eating wood, or did her crew have to craft it, or -

"And you Miss Chesapeake Abyssal." Hopkins interrupted my train of thought by pointing her weapon at Chesapeake. "You'll have to reign in those murderous impulses. I won't let you harm any of the humans here."

"There are humans here?" We asked together. Why would there be humans here? How would there be humans here? Had the Abyssals somehow missed some humans who'd gone into hiding?

Hopkins nodded. "Of course. Alabama should know this already, but I guess Chesapeake is new around here. This is the location of the one and only Abyssal human prison camp, with a population of twelve. Well, I guess officially it's twelve, but unofficially it's thirteen including me, and I guess it's fourteen if you want to include Alabama's adorable radiowoman."

"Abyssals don't take prisoners." I said reflexively.

"Well you do! Miss Harper can tell you more about it if you've forgotten. Wait a minute…" Hopkins gasped and looked at me critically. "Don't tell me you've hit your head recently? Maybe you gave yourself amnesia, and your brain invented this 'Jessica' persona as an escape to avoid dealing with all the heinous acts you've committed!"

"What? No, I'm not an escape!" I cried. "I have family, who're probably taking my 'death' pretty hard. It's all real!"

"That's just what your brain wants you to think! Anyways, I've been sidetracked." Hopkins said as she focused her eyes and gun back on Chesapeake. "I've been told that you have an unending desire to kill humans. I can, and I will, blow you into tiny little pieces in the name of justice if you hurt Miss Harper or any of the others here."

"I'll… keep that in mind." Chesapeake responded, her shark fin bobbing up and down as she nodded.

We entered the building and were led down a fairly long hallway. As we walked, a few of the doors lining it cautiously peeked open as a few heads tentatively poked out to watch us. Three were men of various ages, all looking like they were auditioning for hillbilly beard of the year. Two women stuck their heads out as well, one of them with the most beautiful shock of red hair-

Wait, was that Sue? I started to double back to check but found myself staring down the muzzle of a gun as wide as my mouth.

"Please keep moving prisoner!" Hopkins said with a smile on her face.

I quickly resumed my march down the hallway. Investigations into possible Sue-survival would have to wait.

We reached the end of the hallway, which ended in a large, opaque, sliding glass door. The faded letters on it used to read, "MASTER BEDROOM", but the first word had been scratched out long ago. Below it, the word, "QUISLING" had been carved into the door, but was also scratched out. Below that was carved "HARPER'S", which had a light slash through half the letters, as if the vandal had paused and had second thoughts. At the bottom was one last line of carvings, reading, "STILL A QUISLING."

The door slid open and we were marched inside. The room itself looked a lot nicer than the rest of the building. Fancy plates and paintings hung from the wall, a fancy chandelier hung from the ceiling, and a complete set of silverware sat on the desk that made up the room's centerpiece. Behind it sat a tired woman, dressed in clothes that were once the height of fashion but were now fraying at the edges. I could see the blood drain from her face the minute she saw Chesapeake.

"Hopkins," she whispered in a low but steady voice, "what have you done?"

"I have done as you asked Miss Harper, and have defeated Alabama! She surrendered, so I figured I'd just bring her here." Hopkins said, pride leaking out of her voice at every word.

I was unceremoniously shoved forward by the muzzle of a gun. I gave Harper a brittle smile. "Look, I know she thinks I'm a shipgirl, but I'm just an innocent girl named Jessica."

The woman sighed. "Alabama does not look anything like that, nor does she wear a toga."

"Ha!" Vindication rolled off of me in waves that were almost palpable.

"Oh." Hopkins said, looking crestfallen for a moment. Then she brightened up. "I did find the Abyssal frigate though! This is Chesapeake." She said, gesturing towards the frigate as if she was introducing her parents to a friend she'd made on the playground.

"Yes you did." Said Harper, looking at Chesapeake like she was something unpleasant she'd found on the bottom of her shoe. I tried to project my feelings of intense displeasure at her, but I probably just ended up looking constipated. "Why is it here and not dead?"

" _She's_ right here and _she_ has a name." Chesapeake stressed. I suspect that all the major little irritations were beginning to pile up for her. She was tapping her foot and her eyes were glowing a bit darker than they normally did.

"Chesapeake is here because you and I need to have a Chat." Hopkins declared, smacking her right fist into her open palm. "You said that Abyssals would try to kill me or other humans on sight and that there wasn't any way to take them prisoner. Yet I found Jessica, who claims to be human despite my continued assertions otherwise, traveling with Chesapeake. They were not trying to kill each other. They also surrendered rather than face me in battle. Did you tell me the whole truth about Abyssals, or did you skip some things during your briefing on the matter?"

Harper made some unhappy grunting noises. "I told you everything of importance. Perhaps they were merely delivering an additional prisoner to this island."

The two turned to look at Chesapeake expectantly.

"Wait wait wait." I interrupted. "You seem to be under the impression that just because Chesapeake is an Abyssal, she is with the Abyssals. She's really not."

"She's an Abyssal. Of course she is." Harper said with certainty. Huh, was this what it was like looking into a mirror on things I was certain about?

"Yes, yes." I dismissed. "We've all seen the shark fin and gills, which are absolutely adorable by the way. Gosh, way to be shallow and judgy about her because of her facial features. However, if you look beneath that, but not too deep or you'll run into the Abyssal tumor, you'll find out that she's actually quite… uh… grumpy most of the time. She's also obstinate when it comes to being told that certain people _can take care of themselves_."

"I don't know whether that was supposed to be a compliment or an insult." My fine finned friend said. "Also, getting ourselves captured on what we thought was a deserted island proves that you are absolutely incapable of staying out of trouble."

"Staying out of trouble and taking care of myself are two completely different things." I defended. "Besides, do you know what happens when I get restless? Bad things happen when I get restless. By getting into trouble I'm getting ahead of the curb."

Harper looked between us like we were aliens. Her gaze came to rest on Chesapeake. "Why do you care about her?" She asked, indicating me. "The only reason myself and the others here weren't killed was because Alabama wanted us alive. What's your game, what are you playing at with her?"

Harper had a pretty intimidating glare, the kind that announced to everyone that, 'I've seen some shit'. Chesapeake was unamused, and her facial expression responded with, 'really bro? You might have found a turd once, but _I've seen some shit_ in my time.' Harper blinked first and leaned back slightly.

Chesapeake grinned like a shark for a moment, before adopting a much more sober expression. "A few days ago, I made a very poor choice. Jessica helped me to avoid some of the consequences of that choice. Besides, as aggravating as she can be at times, she doesn't deserve to die."

I am not aggravating! Most of the time!

Harper stared at Chesapeake, as if she could prod the frigate into continuing with the power of her glare. Chesapeake wasn't moved, and seemed to have said her piece. For a moment there was silence in the room.

"You know what? Fine. If shipgirls like Alabama can turn traitor, why can't an Abyssal turn traitor too?" Harper slumped over her desk and muttered, "it's not like I'm already under a massive amount of stress, what's one more mountain on top of that pile?"

She rubbed her eyes, then resumed glaring at Chesapeake and I. "What are you doing on this island anyways?"

Chesapeake answered before I could. "The two of us were attempting to sneak through the Abyssal front lines. We didn't even know there was anyone, Abyssal or human, on the island when we first arrived."

Oh, so that's the story we were running with. I guess it'd be best to pretend Chesapeake's sisters and my fellow humans didn't exist until we knew these two were actually going to let us go free.

"What is the purpose of keeping you here anyways? If the Abyssals do not typically take prisoners, then why are you prisoners?" Chesapeake asked.

"We're here for their war effort of course." Harper said sarcastically. "When the navies of the world started summoning girls like Hopkins, the Abyssals had the bright idea of trying to summon the remaining ships first. They didn't have much luck getting warships, aside from Alabama, but they found out that the process works much better if there were humans involved. So they grabbed a dozen of us and put us here on this island."

"The shipgirls you summon help the Abyssals?" I asked incredulously.

"They weren't given a choice." Hopkins said in a small voice.

Harper nodded. "Alabama has the process down to a science. Due to an absence of specific materials, ships are summoned without weapons. They aren't told much aside from serve or die. Resistance is pointless, if they're killed they'll return as an Abyssal anyways."

I clenched my fists. "And you helped them with that?"

"I hinder them more than anything." Harper defended. "Alabama doesn't actually need us anymore, she just finds doing it herself boring. We've done what we can to sabotage the process without being noticed, and I'd been preparing for the day when I could summon a warship to destroy this place and help us escape."

"That's where I came in!" Hopkins announced. "Through long hours of hard work, many dangerous late night thefts, and Alabama's apparent predilection to giving fancy gifts, Miss Harper managed to acquire the necessary materials to summon me!"

Harper gave us a grim smile. "I'd hoped to at least be able to summon a destroyer, but I suppose an armed merchantmen was better than nothing."

Hopkins beamed. "Indeed!"

Before Harper could continue, there was a sharp rap on the door. She sighed. "What is it Garibaldi?"

"I need to speak with you." A man's voice called through the door.

"Is Alabama coming?" Harper demanded.

"Well no." The man denied. "But ma'm-"

"I told you to keep an eye out for Alabama so that I know when I need to hide everything." She ordered.

"Ma'm, I really think you need to hear this." He said.

"Just spit it out already." I yelled.

"Is that Jessica?" Called a familiar voice. We heard scrambling from outside the room, and then the door was thrown open. Christopher entered, dragging his brother behind him.

"Who are these people? Where are all these new people coming from?" Harper demanded.

Christopher ignored her in favor of looking straight at Chesapeake. For once, I couldn't detect any trace of hatred or fear when he looked at her. "Your sisters have been captured."

Oh. Shit. _Oh shit._

"WHAT?" Chesapeake screeched, the glow in her eyes burning twice as bright.


	17. Chapter 15

~~~Hopkins~~~

Warning bells went off in my head. I circled around Chesapeake to get a better look, keeping my gun trained on her the entire time. I settled into a position just behind and to the side of Miss Harper.

The frigate's eyes were burning like a bonfire. They were mostly a bright red, but there were small sparks of yellow intermixed. It looked pretty intimidating, and a member of my crew crossed herself. Chesapeake looked ready to rip someone's head off. I couldn't let that happen.

I watched to see if she would give in to her rising anger. For a moment the rage on her face continued to build. The number of yellow sparks in her eyes multiplied rapidly, her teeth audibly grinded, and she was clenching her fists so hard I could see blood dripping from where her nails had pierced her skin.

Huh, I had nails too. I'd have to cut those sometime.

Chesapeake was still getting angrier. I fingered one of my two 37-milimeters, wishing once again that I hadn't had to put away my 4-inch gun to enter the room. If only the barrel wasn't so long…

Jessica reached out a hand and gently laid it on the Abyssal frigate's shoulder, and leaned in to whisper something into her ears. Chesapeake's eyes continued to burn furiously, but otherwise her posture relaxed.

Whew, glad that was probably over. The last thing I wanted was an artillery duel in a building full of humans. That was the reason I hadn't engaged Alabama the last time she was here, and had instead hid in the closet.

"What. Happened?" The angry Abyssal eventually ground out.

"A shipgirl showed up at the beach about an hour after you two left. Constellation and United States went to confront her, but then two Abyssals jumped out of the ocean. Your sisters surrendered, we left to come find you once we saw them dumping their cannons into the sand." The man explained.

Sisters? Chesapeake had sisters? I wonder if they also have shark fins on their head.

"What did she look like? The shipgirl?" Chesapeake snarled.

"Let me guess. Blue coat, brown hair, a bit on the short side?" Asked Miss Harper.

"Yes actually."

Miss Harper nodded. "Alabama."

"Well now!" Jessica exclaimed. "It looks like we have a common enemy. How about you put your gun away Hopkins, and we all work together to get off this island?"

~~~.~~~

 _The next day_ …

I hummed as I made my way through the island's interior. My guide clung to my shoulder, every now and then calling out directions when I needed to turn. I hopped over a hole in the ground, skipped past some flowers, and jumped over a fallen tree. The land looked so peaceful, it's too bad that we'd be shooting it up pretty soon.

"What do you think about Stella?" I asked. "It keeps the Ste- of Stephen, and also feels more like _me_ than most names."

The fairy voiced a negative. After thinking about it for a moment I nodded. "You're right. We'll be meeting Constellation soon enough, it'd get confusing."

From that point I continued on, taking three more turns. Then I paused. This area of the island looked suspiciously familiar, like I'd walked through it a moment ago. I glanced at the fairy clinging to my shoulder. "Are you sure this is where I'm supposed to be going?"

Alabama's former radiowoman gave me a thumbs up.

I smiled. "Alright, just checking. Thanks again for helping us out and signing up with my crew. I know Miss Harper says you helped us because you were bored and she had shiny things to offer, but do you know what I think?"

The radiowoman tilted her head.

"I think you did it because you're just that swell a gal." I said with a decisive nod. Could I nod decisively? I really needed a mirror to practice various gestures in. I needed to know if I could give a decisive nod or just a definitive nod.

I continued my romp through the forest. I really hoped that we were right, that Alabama stuck Chesapeake's sisters in the same hole in the ground she stuck Kearsarge in. If she hadn't, the timetable of our escape would be thrown off while Chesapeake tore the entire island apart with her bare hands.

That girl was scary.

Alabama's fairy called for me to slow down, saying we were getting close to our destination. I certainly didn't want to alert the guard that I was coming. I took the last few hundred feet one step at a time, trying to move as quietly as possible. For a ship that displaced over seven thousand tons, I think I was moving rather quietly. Whether that was quiet for a human, or quiet enough to avoid the guard noticing was unknown.

I stuck my head around a tree and froze when I caught a glimpse of the side of an Abyssal. It looked like a gray sphere, with a cannon sticking out of its mouth and another cannon on its forehead. A set of torpedo tubes were mounted on its back. About ten yards beyond it was a deep pit, which was presumably where the three shipgirls were being held.

I slowly slid back behind the tree and sat down to wait.

"You should probably get inside." I whispered to Alabama's radiowoman. Her part in this done, she nodded and clambered down a hatch to join the rest of my crew.

~~~.~~~

It had been perhaps three hours, and I was beginning to understand why Alabama's fairy was so willing to help us. It wasn't that she was a swell gal, it was that waiting for stuff to happen was _boring._ I sat, and sat, and sat. I couldn't do anything too distracting to busy myself, I didn't want to miss the sounds of distant gunfire.

So I waited.

I waited.

I watched a bug cross a log.

Booooring.

I heard a humming noise.

The Abyssal behind me began to growl deeply. Had it discovered my presence?

I pulled out my lovely 4-inch gun (just in case), and slooooowly eased out from behind the tree. The Abyssal destroyer was facing away from me, jumping up and down off the ground like a big rubber ball. Whatever had its attention had made it angry, and it seemed to be debating whether to stay or leave. It would take two hops forward, then two hops back. Two hops forward, two hops back.

That humming was getting pretty loud. Wait, that wasn't humming! I looked up to see a ball of smoke trailing through the sky, an aircraft of some kind. It was clearly damaged, belching black smoke and was on a slow descent that it didn't look like it was pulling out of. It soon disappeared among the trees, and a few seconds later I heard a distant _thump._

Oops. Looks like things were already moving if the attack on the airfield had kicked off. It also looked like things were already going wrong as well. I'd better get started.

"Alright!" I shouted, announcing my presence as I stepped out from behind the tree. "Abyssal destroyer, it is time you faced jus-"

BANG! BANG!

The destroyer had spun itself around and was now firing at me from both its guns. The first shot had missed me, but the second had grazed my arm, doing superficial damage.

"Fine. Be that way!" I responded as I aimed and opened fire.

"What's going on?" I heard a female voice call from the nearby pit. Well, at least one prisoner was here.

The destroyer and I slowly circled each other at close range. There was no point in dodging, we couldn't miss. We fired into one another, hitting with every shot. I could see small parts of the Abyssal being blown off, and could feel my internal spaces fill with shrapnel.

I shed a tear when one of my crew vanished from my awareness. She wasn't the last one either. I found myself reliving the past when the crew for my 4-inch gun was taken out by a hit that mangled my hands, and felt volunteers from the rest of my crew rush to replace them.

Soon after that the gun became inoperable from repeated hits.

"Come on, give me a boost!" Called the voice in the pit again.

On the bright side, the destroyer was definitely taking damage. The gun inside of its mouth had been damaged so badly that it had exploded when the destroyer tried to fire it, and its many pock marks made the sphere look more like a golf ball.

On the down side, I'd lost almost all of my firepower, and my opponent had only lost half. I began to breathe heavily as my crew rushed to man the 37-milimeter anti-aircraft guns, and I pulled out the first to bear on my enemy.

BANG!

I flinched as the breech of the weapon ripped itself apart. Huh. Guess something went terribly wrong. It probably was the near century that had passed since the last maintenance check. I switched the destroyed weapon out for the other 37-milimeter, which happily began to spit leaden death at my opponent.

Okay, this was bad. I was down to a single weapon, excluding my machineguns, and my opponent still had one of its primary guns working. I guess…

I guess my time would probably be up again soon. Hopefully I'd do enough damage that Chesapeake would be able to finish it off, or maybe one of the humans would think of something.

"Damn it Kearsarge, if you don't help give me a boost right this second I'm going to have you bucked and gagged the entire journey back to America!" The female voice yelled from the pit.

I was desperate. If I didn't stop taking damage pretty soon, I wasn't going to have any crew left to man my remaining weapon. Many of the few that were left were wounded already. I decided to try and close with the destroyer. If I could get close enough to it, I could try running around it faster than it could spin, preventing it from bearing its gun at me.

My charge was slow and unsteady. My hands shook and I couldn't keep my weapon pointed at the destroyer while I ran. I only made it a few steps before the destroyer spun downwards to point its forehead cannon at my legs.

BANG!

I cried out as my left knee gave way, and I stumbled to the ground. The destroyer prepared to fire again, and I held up my arms in a futile attempt to protect my face.

But instead of an explosion, there was just a dull thud. I looked up to see a girl straddling the destroyer's gun, using her weight to force the gun to point uselessly at the ground. She looked a lot like Chesapeake.

"Kill it!" She ordered as she fruitlessly punched the destroyer. "Ow! Kill it!"

I blinked and shook my head, but the image remained. I glanced back at the pit where the prisoners were held, and saw another girl that looked like Chesapeake helping out a third girl in ragged clothing climb out.

"It can't fight back." I mumbled.

I remembered what it was to be like that. To be unable to fire back. To have enemies continue to fire at you after you were completely defenseless. To have wounded men killed attempting to lower lifeboats.

I let my remaining gun point at the ground.

"What are you doing? Kill it before it throws me off!" The girl ordered.

"No." I said. "Not if it can't fight back."

I wouldn't become like my killer. I wouldn't.

"I'm ordering you to kill it!" The girl snarled at me.

In a futile move, the destroyer tried launching its torpedoes. The four fish leaped from the tubes, flew through the air a short distance over my head, and landed flat on the ground behind me without exploding. I could hear the propeller on the weapons spin fruitlessly.

I ignored the girl. It hurt to much to talk anyways. It probably hurt too much to lift my weapon anyways. I laid down and stared at the sky. It was pretty.

"Argh! Constellation, Kearsarge, get over here and grab ahold of it."

No one had to float to Brazil this time, so that's something.

"Okay, we lift it on three! One, two, THREE!"

My few remaining crew could probably fix the damage within a year or so. Maybe. Possibly. I was on land, it's not like I could sink.

"Okay, keep walking. We're almost to the pit."

Oh good, Alabama's former radiowoman survived. That's really swell. Almost as swell as she is.

"Aaaaand DROP!"

 _THUD!_

Oh, you have a cut? Don't worry, at worst it will scar. All my crew thought women loved scars, maybe men will too. Are there male fairies? Did I just randomly draw an all-female fairy crew? These are important questions.

"How do you like it at the bottom of the pit? Good luck getting out without arms or legs!"

BANG!

"Back away from the pit, even if it can't get out that cannon still works!"

I passed out.


	18. Chapter 16

What's this? Two updates in one day? … I actually do that more often than I should.

~~~Jessica~~~

Chesapeake paced before me. She looked much calmer than she had earlier, which I was very thankful for. She'd gotten scarily close to the way she'd been back when she'd tried to kill me, and I feared what might happen if her sisters were found in anything less than perfect condition. Pissed and angry did not come _close_ to describing what Chesapeake was feeling, and everyone around her could see it.

She stopped pacing and rounded on me, and I instantly stood at attention. Or as close to attention as I could muster. I was standing straight and had my hands clasped together, what more could she possibly want?

"If you're going to go through with this, know that I won't tolerate any insubordination. Gunpowder is a dangerous material, I will have you flogged before I allow you to misbehave around it."

"Sure!" I chirped, giving a sloppy salute.

Chesapeake stared at me, judging me. I straightened my back and tried to look professional. I probably failed, but it was definitely the toga's fault. The toga hasn't been a professional look since ancient Rome.

"Uh, yes mam!" I tried. Was that the respectful way to refer to her, or should I have said 'sir'? Being respectful was hard.

Chesapeake sighed. "I'm going after Alabama tomorrow, so I don't have the time to properly drill you in anything. Any disciplinary actions I feel are necessary will have to be administered after the battle, as I cannot have your performance hampered by the effects of a flogging or other punishments."

I laughed nervously. "We wouldn't want that to happen, would we?"

"No." She said flatly. "Any questions before we begin?"

I raised my hand. "Yes. Why don't we just put a couple of barrels of gunpowder up against the outer walls of the hangar and just blow the whole place up?"

"Too dangerous." She responded immediately. "Setting explosives to detonate after a certain amount of time is always tricky, and there are numerous ways it can go wrong. I will not be responsible for creating a second _Intrepid_. Additionally, our attacks need to be performed simultaneously."

"What happened with _Intrepid_?" I asked curiously.

For a moment, Chesapeake gazed off into the distance. "It was a captured ship that was filled with explosives to attack the fleet anchored in Tripoli. It detonated early, killing all aboard."

I gulped. Gunpowder is dangerous, noted. Time bombs are even more dangerous, also noted.

"Are you ready to begin?" Chesapeake asked, staring deep into my soul.

I nodded eagerly.

Chesapeake pulled out one of her cannons and placed it on the ground between us with a dull _thud_. "This is a 24-pounder cannon. Together with its carriage, it weighs about 6,000 pounds, is nine feet long, and can throw a cannonball through two feet of oak at a distance of 1,000 yards. If you stand directly behind it when it fires, it will likely kill you with the recoil."

"Do not stand in front of or behind the cannon. Got it." I nodded.

Chesapeake glared at me for a moment, and I stood as still and attentive as I could.

"My crew will take care of loading and arming the guns, but cannot assist once they have been dismounted due to the size difference. I will handle the placement and aiming myself. All that you and the other humans will have to do is fire them."

"Stand to the side, not in front or behind the cannons, and pull the lanyard. Got it." I said, giving her a thumbs up.

The frigate shook her head. "That is how gunlocks work. I don't have those, my cannons use loggerheads."

Oh, yes, loggerheads. Of course. Everyone knew about those. How could I have possibly forgotten the famous loggerheads? Loggerheads were my favorite topic in school. I bet America couldn't have won its independence from England without those loggerheads.

Loggerheads…

"And loggerheads are?" I asked. "Besides a sea turtle?"

Chesapeake sighed.

~~~.~~~

 _The next day…_

Apparently loggerheads are basically a metal stick with a wooden handle. You put the metal half in a fire to heat it up, and then touch the hot end to the cannon's primer to fire it.

Who would have guessed?

It was early morning and I sat near the top of the hill with the airfield, watching Chesapeake. The frigate was pulling her guns out one at a time and placing them in a line facing the Abyssal hangar. Antique cannons might not be good anti-aircraft guns, but they were perfectly capable of putting big holes through lightly armored buildings, like hangars. They were even more capable of putting holes through lightly armored aircraft, like the ones inside the hangar. Ideally we'd hit all the aircraft inside the building before any of them could take off. If that didn't work, we'd run to the forest and pray the aircraft wouldn't find us until Hopkins could come by and save our asses.

Below us, members of our impromptu 'human militia' were milling around. Of course, by 'human militia', I mean all the human prisoners from this island, plus Christopher and Arthur. As Hopkins would be busy freeing Chesapeake's sisters, and Chesapeake herself would be settling her grudge match with Alabama, it was up to us to make sure the Abyssal aircraft were grounded.

Once Chesapeake had placed the twentieth cannon, I started to frown. She'd need some guns to take on Alabama with. I walked over and whispered, "Hey Chesapeake, isn't this a little much? Are you planning on fighting Alabama with your bare hands?"

Chesapeake marched a few feet further to put down cannon number twenty-one before responding. "After I finish this I'm going to the beach where we landed. I'll have my pick of over eighty of my sister's guns, there's no reason for me to not give you everything I'm currently carrying."

Didn't Chesapeake carry dozens of cannons? Oh yes, I'd get to fire a cannon more than once today! I was going to live out every child's dream to cause a Big Boom.

"Jessica, rubbing your hands together and cackling are actions unbecoming of a navy sailor." Chesapeake chided as she bent behind a cannon to ensure it was pointed at the hangar.

Wait, what did she say? "Since when am I a navy sailor?"

Chesapeake stood up and turned to face me with a serious expression. "I can't leave a battery of forty guns without any form of supervision. I'm making this your responsibility."

"Why me?" I asked. "I thought you didn't think I could keep myself out of trouble."

She sighed. "I don't think you can keep yourself out of trouble, and I think you are reckless and impulsive. However, I'm even more reckless and impulsive than you are, and several of my captains were also that way. It's a trait that is valuable in commanders in moderate amounts, as initiative and daring are always good things to have. The two of us, however, likely need someone to tell us when to stop."

"Okay…" I said, dragging out the word for a few seconds. "That doesn't explain why you're putting me in charge."

"What did you think yesterday was about?" She asked. "None of the humans here can understand anything my crew tries to say. That's why I specifically taught you every aspect of this. I'm temporarily enlisting you with my crew. It's mostly honorary, sure, but I _need_ someone to keep these people in line. Do you accept?"

I paused to think about it. I had already figured that Chesapeake had chosen me to be in charge of this whole affair in her absence, but I didn't think it came with an official job.

Wait a minute.

The gears turned in my head, and I had an awful idea. I had a wonderful, awful idea. "Chesapeake?" I asked. "This is a job offer, right?"

She frowned. "Temporarily. I'm not certain you're cut out for a career in the navy."

I pushed on. "But for a short time you'll be my boss, right?"

"In… a manner of speaking, yes. I'll be your commanding officer."

I moved in for the kill. "So the next time I apply for a job, could I put you down as a reference?"

"I could vouch for your character, yes."

"Score!" I said, pumping my fist.

"Wouldn't my status as an Abyssal make me untrustworthy?" Chesapeake asked.

I waved my arm. "Nah, we'll just give you glasses, a hat, a scarf, and call you a shipgirl. Everybody loves shipgirls. With you as a reference I can get any job I want!"

"Does this mean that you accept?" Chesapeake asked.

I nodded. "Sure. Anything else I need to know?"

"Yes actually. Take this." Chesapeake said, reaching behind herself and pulling out a sword. It was about three feet long, had a handle, and was sword shaped.

I'm not an expert with swords. Sue me.

I took it from her carefully. "Uh, thanks, but what do I need this sword for? Is it so I can do that thing where the signal for everyone to fire is me slicing downwards with it?"

"It's a cutlass. Typically it's used for boarding actions, but in this case it's for running through anyone who tries to desert their post." She said with a straight face.

I dropped the cutlass in horror. "Are you joking?"

Chesapeake's face could have been chiseled from stone. "No. Killing the first typically keeps the second from bolting."

"Surely you don't have to go that far? What would your sisters do?" I pleaded. Surely sweet, gentle Constellation wouldn't kill a man for freaking out when placed in a life or death situation?

"They'd do it in a heartbeat." She said without an ounce of hesitation. "One of Constellation's crewmen did it during her first engagement."

She then turned from me and went to position another cannon. I stared down at the blade, wondering what I'd just gotten myself into.

~~~.~~~

Hours passed. Chesapeake had finished setting up all forty of her guns, and had wandered off to go pick up her sister's cannons and confront Alabama. Harper had used a lighter to start the fire to heat the loggerheads, and we all sat down to wait for the sound of guns.

For a while no one spoke. We were all a bit jittery, anxious about what might happen and were unable to do anything about it. Arthur began picking the hairs out of his chin one by one. Harper fiddled with the lighter she had used. Sue stared at me like I was a ghost given flesh.

"So…" I began. "Sue, you're looking good. In fact, you look great. I thought you went down with our ship."

The diminutive red-head was rocking the ragged and torn up sailor look even better than she did her normal clothing. She gave a small shrug. "I really don't remember much. One minute our ship was breaking in half, the next some Abyssal is dragging me out of the water and slinging me over her shoulder. Two days after that she dropped me off here. How did you three survive, much less pick up a friendly Abyssal?"

Well the truth was that my brother broke quite a few laws related to secrecy at the Christmas dinner table, but no one needed to know that. In fact, no one would ever know that if I could help it.

"Magic." I said, wiggling my fingers. That got a laugh out of one or two people.

"What's her story? Why isn't she like all the others?" Sue pressed.

That seemed suspiciously like something Chesapeake should be answering, not me. "She had very supportive sisters." I hedged. It was even true, without them Chesapeake would have likely killed me.

"Oh really, is that all it took?" A woman I didn't know the name of said in heavily accented English. "Dafina, I know I have told you many times I would support any decisions you make. If, however, you choose to become an Abyssal I will still support you, but I will have to tell father. He would likely be very disappointed in you."

We all got a good laugh out of that.

 _Boom!_

Everyone fell silent.

 _Boom! Boom!_

It was go time. I took a deep breath and stood up. "Alright people, let's go kill some Abyssals!"

A rather half-hearted cheer went up, and everyone scrambled to go grab a loggerhead out of the fire. Surprisingly, Arthur was the one who got to them first. Maybe he wanted to go ahead and get it over with so he could hide in the forest, maybe he'd finally found a backbone, or maybe he was just a fast runner. Whatever the reason, he grabbed the first loggerhead and bolted towards the guns.

I grabbed my own loggerhead and took off. As the girl in charge of everything (not that I had to do anything other than say 'go', Chesapeake was such a worry-wort), I had the three cannons farthest to the left. By the time I got to them, several cannons had already been fired.

 **BANG! BANG! BA-BANG!**

Damn, that was loud.

A chorus of unearthly wails emitted from the hangar, which shook and rattled as cannonballs impacted with it. The sound of aircraft engines starting was barely audible over the roar of cannonfire, but it struck fear into my heart all the same. Hopefully we'd put a stop to those engines.

I touched the loggerhead to the primer powder on my first cannon. For a split second nothing happened, and I wondered what I'd done wrong.

 **BANG!**

The gun belched fire and smoke, sending an I-don't-know-how-many-pounds cannonball slamming through the hangar walls.

Holy shit, I'd just shot a cannon at an Abyssal.

It felt _awesome_.

I looked over my shoulder to check on the others progress. Most of the guns were further back from the remainder, having been fired and pushed back by the recoil. Nobody seemed to be running away, and the three who'd already finished were gathering together. Arthur was among them, visibly shaking, but among them.

I sighed in relief. I had no idea what I'd have done if he'd run, but chasing him with my new cutlass was definitely not it. Discipline or no discipline, I think the Abyssals were doing a good enough job at killing humans without us helping them do it ourselves.

I turned back and proceeded to fire my remaining two cannons. They were just as loud as the first one, and I idly wondered if sailors in the age of sail had to worry about hearing loss.

By this point the hangar was an absolute wreck, with more holes in it than swiss cheese. We hadn't been able to knock it over, but surely everything inside of it was wrecked. Wasn't that one of Newton's laws? For every hole in the side of a hangar, there is an equal and opposite hole in an Abyssal aircraft inside of it? I'm sure I read that in a textbook somewhere.

Then two Abyssal aircraft rolled out of the hangar and onto the runway. I felt like I'd been drenched with a bucket of ice. We'd fired _40_ cannonballs into that building and only got four of the Abyssals? Had some of the cannon missed? What went wrong?

At least both aircraft were clearly damaged. The one in the lead was visibly shedding bits of itself as it barreled down the runway. It took to the skies… and then something Big And Important Looking fell off. The aircraft promptly stopped gaining height and began a slow dive towards the ground. I sighed in relief.

The remaining aircraft was also damaged. So badly damaged in fact that it looked like it was only a stiff breeze away from breaking in half. It began to lazily trundle down the runway for a moment, before seeming to think better of it and slowing to a stop.

Whew. We'd done it! We'd grounded the Abyssal air force on this island! Humans and shipgirls working together for awesomeness! Go team! See kids? When you work together, anything is possible with enough explosives!

Then the Abyssal began to slowly turn in my direction, and my heart skipped a beat as I remembered that many military aircraft didn't just carry bombs, they also carried _guns_.

Oh shit.

I turned to see a very premature victory celebration going on, with everyone giving high fives and hugs and claps on the back. They were gathered a good fifty yards away from me.

"RUN YOU IDIOTS!" I screamed. "GET TO THE FOREST!"

I made it about halfway to the trees when I felt the Abyssal open fire.


	19. Chapter 17

What sorcery is this? We aren't going to Hopkins? Oh yeah, Chesapeake has a boss fight going on.

~~~Chesapeake~~~

"I'm not wasting my one shot at freedom for two captured Abyssals." Harper said.

I slammed my hands down on the table, making an imprint about an inch deep into the wood. How dare she say that!

I roared. "They haven't made the same horrible choice I have! Those are my sisters, you don't have a say in this! Hopkins, you are going to assist me in putting Alabama down, or I'm going to fire a broadside into little Miss Harper!"

"I cannot let you do that!" Hopkins asserted. "So in the interests of keeping everyone alive, I will help you!"

A little of the fire burning inside me went out. "You will?"

She nodded. "Of course! The entire reason Miss Hopkins summoned me was to put an end to that dreadful menace. If I can save your sisters as well, all the better. What are their names?"

I looked down at the table. A few tears fell. "United States and Constellation. I… I'm not coping well with the thought that they're in danger."

~~~.~~~

 _The next day…_

In retrospect, threatening to kill Harper was just another in the long list of 'Chesapeake's poor decisions'. A list that would _definitely_ grow longer if our plan didn't succeed. The burning coal inside of me had ignited into a bonfire from my anger and rage towards Alabama, and it was clouding my head. It hadn't even been 24 hours, and already the only reason I hadn't struck out with lethal force against Jessica and the other humans for the smallest of reasons was by focusing all that anger and hatred towards Alabama.

That ship was marked for death. If I didn't kill her in battle and somehow captured her, I planned to spike her guns, destroy her engine, evacuate her crew, and burn her to the waterline. She wouldn't survive the day if I had any say about it.

No one could be allowed to harm my sisters, my _kin_.

I felt it was rather fitting that I left Jessica and the other humans all of my guns. It meant that I could face Alabama with a battery consisting entirely of weapons from my sisters. Their guns would have their revenge.

I had loaded sixty of them aboard. About the only good thing that came out of my becoming an Abyssal was the change of my structure to be more in line with that of my original plans. This allowed me to imitate President, who had carried sixty guns in British service.

Not that the difference of ten additional cannon would change the outcome very much. While I preferred having almost three and a half times Alabama's broadside weight, I would be just as capable of defeating her as with only twice her broadside weight.

Currently, I was standing in the doorway of the building where the humans had lived. If Alabama followed her daily routine, she would come by here after her morning sail to check her radio messages. If she didn't, well, I'd find her eventually. Hopefully on land, away from her Abyssal bodyguards that had forced my sisters to surrender.

The forest ahead of me rustled, and a small figure came out. Just as Harper had described, she wore a blue coat and had brown hair. She wandered in my direction, paying more attention to the lit match in her hand than to where she was walking.

Anger and rage boiled up from the coal within my chest. I grabbed those feelings, balled them up, and shoved them into my legs as I stomped towards my opponent. She noticed me when I got around thirty yards away, dropping her match and grinding it into the dirt with her left foot.

"Good to see that my destroyers aren't completely blind and unable to distinguish between a shipgirl and an Abyssal." Alabama said as we came to a stop. "Of course, they still managed to miss the other two frigates, so that's not saying much about their competence. Anyways, I'm Alabama and this is my island. If you've done anything to the humans in that building I'm going to be extremely cross with you."

I ground my teeth at her casual behavior. "You took my sisters." I growled.

She raised an eyebrow. "So you did come in with those two. I guess we're going to be fighting then? I would just call my bodyguards to intimidate you, but we're a bit far from the ocean. One of them needs repairs for grounding herself anyways, so it's probably best they're not here. Not the brightest of things, those destroyers."

I _flexed_ a muscle, and a representation of the side of my hull appeared along both of my lower arms. Tiny gunports opened as my crew wheeled my guns out to point at my enemy. I was fully prepared for action.

"Yes." I hissed. "We're fighting."

I opened fire.

I wasn't used to firing at human sized targets. It was the reason I'd missed Jessica when I'd fired on her a few days ago, and it was the reason that my combined broadsides failed to put more than a dozen holes in Alabama's hull. She hissed in pain before responding with two broadsides of her own. To my chagrin, her aim was much better than mine. Out of the seven shots she fired, five hit. The worst was an exploding shell from a gun much larger than anything I carried. It easily pierced my chest and wreaked havoc on my gun deck.

Then the two of us stared at each other awkwardly. We'd both shot our wads, and it'd take a minute or so to reload a single broadside. It would take even longer if we split our gun crews to reload the weapons on both sides at the same time.

After about thirty seconds, Alabama began to slowly walk closer to me. I frowned. "Have you struck?"

She stopped a few feet away. "No, not yet."

I watched in confusion as she raised her hands in the air. Then my eyes widened as she brought her hands, now holding a large cannon, down onto the top of my head.

 _Crack!_

I saw stars as I was thrown forward onto the ground in front of me. My head ached badly as I struggled to concentrate on anything other than the pain. It took me a moment to gather my wits and push myself onto my knees.

"You're so _fresh_. Kearsarge was the same way. There's so much we can do in these new bodies that you haven't figured out yet. So many ways we can fight, so many tricks we can pull."

I had finally struggled to my feet when I felt something press into the spine of my upper back.

 **BOOM!**

I immediately dropped to my knees. As the smoke cleared, something small and red fell to the ground in front of me. I glanced down at the hole that now decorated the center of my chest, idly wondering if I had the same internal organs as a human did. If so, that shot would have probably nicked my heart. I then lifted my head to look at the small red object. It seemed to give off a sense of both _wrongness_ and familiarity at the same time.

I continued to stare at it as I fell forward onto the ground. My captain was dead, as was a good number of my crew. My secondary captain, the one from Britain, took over and began to organize my surviving officers and men.

The small red thing was just a few inches away from my face. It looked sort of like a coal, one that was quickly cooling and turning black. Had my kitchen been hit?

Alabama continued talking. I ignored her as I concentrated on pulling myself back together. It would take at least another minute to ready a broadside, a minute I did not have. I needed to change the course of this battle _now_. My second captain agreed with my assessment, and began making preparations. I didn't have high hopes considering my crew's performance in my engagement with _Shannon_ , but it would have to do.

Alabama was still talking. "It's like you expect me to walk into a battle where I'd be completely outmatched without having a single ace up my sleeve. My aircraft will probably arrive soon to investigate the sound of gunfire, and you'd best give up before they do."

Well, we were right about one thing. Harper had asserted that Alabama had some sort of an ace up her sleeve, and Jessica had bet that it was the airfield.

My captain alerted me that her preparations were complete. I took a deep breath, and unsteadily got to my feet. Alabama eyed me warily, but didn't stop me.

"Do you know what Alabama?" I asked.

She said something in response. I don't know what it was, I wasn't listening. When her mouth stopped moving I enacted my plan. "If you want close quarters, **I'll give you close quarters!** "

My arms shot out and lifted her off the ground in a hug that quickly became a vice. I dragged her closer until she was pressed against my chest, her nose against mine. She screamed something at me, her eyes wide and panicked. Good, she ought to be afraid of what a true warship was capable of. Her arms, pinned between the two of us, scratched fruitlessly at my clothing. Her feet impacted my legs over and over as she kicked me. My legs would probably be bruised tomorrow, but they held for now.

Alabama's struggles were useless.

The first members of my boarding party, led by my remaining captain, emerged from my hatches and climbed onto the top of my head. Alabama seemed to realize what was about to happen and began to thrash her head around madly. I bashed my forehead against hers, stunning both of us for a minute and giving my crew time to secure our heads together with ropes.

My part in the plan now complete, I slightly relaxed my grip on Alabama and began to listen to what she was saying. Currently, she was cursing me, my designer, and his mother. My eyes drifted upwards, and I watched the last of my hundred-odd boarding party dive down Alabama's hatches.

My second captain had not been able to recruit as many of my crew for this venture as I'd liked. Just as in my engagement with _Shannon_ , many of my American crew had begun to break with the loss of my captain and other officers. It wasn't as bad this time, likely due to my second captain and a few other officers remaining alive, but it was still disgraceful. When a captain calls for boarders, every true sailor should grab a cutlass and fall in, not run and hide on the Orlop Deck.

Hopefully one-hundred would be enough. It should be, fifty had been enough to capture me after all, and I knew from Alabama's radiowoman that I had a significant advantage in crew. I didn't know how many of her crew had survived my broadsides, but she'd started out with less than 200 sailors. My crew, even after taking heavy casualties, was sitting at around 300 unwounded women.

The two of us stood there for a moment, the ropes forcing us to look into each other's faces. We both waited to discover the result of my gamble, but only Alabama knew how it was progressing. It couldn't be going _that_ badly, my crew had not been forced back up the hatches, and Alabama certainly didn't have the look of someone who was winning a battle. I took comfort in her terrified expression.

After a few minutes, a figure popped out of Alabama's hatches and climbed down onto her nose so that we could see her. My second captain looked like she'd gotten into a fist fight with a grizzly bear, with her uniform slashed and blood leaking from a wound to her head. She gave me a thumbs up, and I sighed in relief and relaxed my grip on Alabama.

This turned out to be the wrong thing to do, as without my arms pressing her weight against me it pulled me forwards and off-balance. The two of us toppled onto the ground, nearly squishing my captain in the process. I grimaced at her, but my captain got to her feet with a wobble and began to totter towards my hatches. And hopefully a doctor, that head wound looked serious.

More members of my crew began to exit Alabama. They began the process of cutting the ropes that bound us both, and tying new ones to secure Alabama's hands together.

"My aircraft…" She mumbled. "They'll come. My aircraft will come."

"Your aircraft are destroyed." I spat at her.

Her expression crumpled, and I felt a sick pleasure in watching it. "What… what will you do with me?" She asked fearfully.

She hadn't struck her colors per say, but her crew had clearly given up if my captain felt safe returning to my decks. This battle was over, and Alabama was still alive. I'd already planned out what I would do in this situation.

"Spike your guns, destroy your engine, evacuate your crew, and…"

And burn her to the waterline. At least, that was the original plan.

Strange, I didn't feel the usual flood of violent emotions coming from the coal in my chest. I glanced downwards and inwards towards where I normally felt those feelings emanating from, and found myself staring at a hole. There was a hole all the way through my hull where the coal had been. I no longer had the coal in me.

My Abyssal tumor was gone.

I laughed for a second. I had been so worried about what would happen when it came time to remove that thing, and now my enemy has done the job for me!

But what to do with her? She had taken my sisters from me, that was something I could not forgive. If Harper was right, she had also betrayed my nation before that. Treason was a hanging offense. I'd just be dispensing justice a little bit faster.

I didn't feel that eager to do it though. Honestly I felt more tired and sad than angry, like I just wanted to sit down and rest. I couldn't though, not until I'd figured out what I was going to do with Alabama.

I… I was USS Chesapeake. I was impulsive and reckless. I made many bad decisions on my own, from charging in half-cocked against a well-drilled British frigate to throwing myself off of a cliff at the behest of the voices in my head. This really wasn't the kind of choice I should be making, even now that I could think a bit more clearly.

I'd have to ask my sisters what we should do. They'd know, they'd both captured enemy ships before, I could trust their judgment. Of course, all that was contingent on Hopkins rescuing them. If something had happened to them, well…

Alabama would burn.

A/N: I wouldn't actually consider Alabama a traitor, what with her being built in England and crewed largely by non-Americans. Of course Chesapeake doesn't really know that, only that Alabama sided with rebels in some civil war that happened decades after her being broken up.

Normally we'd have an interlude next, but I've just set a precedent for ignoring patterns, and in for a penny, in for a pound. As much as I think you'll like POTATO SPOILERS, you probably want to figure out the aftermath of Jessica and Hopkins chapters first.


	20. Chapter 18

~~~Jessica~~~

I shot upright with a gasp, adrenaline flowing through me. I… I was sitting in a hammock inside of Chesapeake. By the look of it, I was on her Berth Deck.

What the hell? How'd I end up here? Why did my head ache so badly? Why did my chest burn so much?

I tried to think back to what had happened. Last thing I remembered was… was…

Oh yeah, I was running away from that damn Abyssal airplane. The fucking Abyssal aircraft that refused to die even after we'd shot its spooky ass full of holes. Then it'd opened fire, _pain_ , and then I was here.

Had I been shot? That might explain why I was down here, surely at least some of Chesapeake's crew knew how to take care of wounds. Or had I tripped and hit my head and chest on rocks? It would explain my splitting headache, as well as the chest discomfort. Had I gotten a concussion? I'd never had a concussion before, was this what a concussion felt like? Could you even feel concussions? Would Chesapeake's 1800's doctors even know what a concussion was?

My eyes widened. Oh shit. Chesapeake was from the 1800's, and might have had doctors take care of me. Did she think bloodletting was a good thing? Did she let leaches drink my blood? Please, tell me that Chesapeake hadn't had doctors do terrible 1800's medicine to me! I don't think I can sue the ghosts of dead sailors for malpractice!

I frantically threw off my toga and searched my body for any bullet holes leaches. Thankfully I found none, but my chest did have a nice deep red and blue spot in the middle of my sternum. I poked it, and my sternum responded with a sharp pain of _why did you poke the obviously tender bruise?_

Okay, let's take stock. I'm on Chesapeake's Berth Deck, where all the hammocks are which means… something, I'm sure. Someone smarter than me could probably figure out the meaning behind it. I'm probably two inches tall again, which sucks. I've got to go let Chesapeake know I'm up so that I can fix that.

I swung myself out of the hammock and onto unsteady feet. As I walked towards the stairs up to the Gun Deck, I noticed that I wasn't alone. A few dozen of Chesapeake's crew were either sleeping in their hammocks or were slowly getting to their feet. Were these the women who had to handle the night shift? Was it even evening yet? What had happened with the others?

I shook my head, and made my way up the stairs to the Gun Deck, emerging next to the captain's cabins. To my surprise the deck was nearly empty. Last time I'd been here this deck was always a hub of activity, but now there was no one on it. There were also several gaping holes in the bulkhead and the overhead that had been hastily patched over. I guessed it was damage from Chesapeake's encounter with Alabama. The fact that Chesapeake was still here for me to be aboard meant that my frigate friend had likely beaten Alabama black and blue.

And then some more, probably. Chesapeake didn't seem to be in the mood for prisoners. I decided I might not want to think about what had probably happened to Alabama too hard.

A noise from behind me made me jump, and I turned around. Captain 1 stumbled out of her cabin, walking like she didn't know which way was up. With her cape, glowing red eyes, and half-lidded gaze, she kind of looked like a vampire who'd gotten drunk. Had her eyes been red before? I couldn't remember. Either way her eyes looked a lot like Chesapeake's.

Captain 1 walked a few more feet towards me before tripping over her own cape. She collapsed onto her back and stared upwards at the ceiling, mumbling to herself.

I walked over to her. "Do you need some help?" I asked.

Captain 1 stared past me. "Those who share the guilt must share the woe. No wait, that's not how the line goes."

Oookay. "I'll just.. I'll just be going now." I said to her. She nodded vacantly, and I retreated back to the stairs.

I climbed up onto the Spar Deck. Being on the Spar Deck was weird, it was both the top deck of a wooden frigate and the back/top of Chesapeake's head at the same time. This was a great recipe for a headache I _really_ didn't need right now. At the moment it was extremely crowded, with the rest of Chesapeake's near-400 woman crew lining up along the side of the ship. I elbowed my way through them, grabbed a fistful of Chesapeake's hair, and began to climb. There were a couple of gasps behind me, but I ignored them as I climbed.

I reached the top of Chesapeake's head and realized a few things. One, we were out at sea again, with no land in sight. Two, the humans from the island, plus two people I didn't recognize, were in a longboat being held still by Constellation. Three, Chesapeake was sitting in another longboat, this one being held in place by United States, who had out a big thick book and was reading from it. Four, also in the longboat with Chesapeake was one large shape wrapped in a flag, and a bunch of smaller shapes wrapped in the same cloth as my toga.

I had a bad feeling about what was going on. I listened in to what United States was saying.

"… and having read that passage, it is now time to commit to the waves our fallen…"

Bad feeling confirmed. We were having a funeral. The smaller shapes were obviously crewmen from the shipgirls, but that left the question of who the larger shape was. Well kids, I guess it's time for everyone's least favorite party game.

Guess that corpse! Everyone's dying to play it.

Fortunately for me, I didn't have to guess. I could just cheat and ask the person I was standing on.

"Hey." I whispered to Chesapeake. "Who kicked the bucket?"

Chesapeake made an odd noise, a sort of combination of a hiccup and a gasp. Her arm darted up and snatched me off of her head, holding me in a bone-crushing grip.

"Hey, hey! Watch the ribs! You're squeezing me!" I gasped as I was brought before Chesapeake's tear-covered face.

"Jessica?" She asked quietly.

I nodded. "Who else do you know that is this awesome, wears a toga, and is heavily bruised?"

Chesapeake started bawling. Tears the size of my head streamed down her cheeks, which was touching. Her hands gripped me harder, which was too touching.

"I'm so glad you're fine." She said in a small voice.

I frowned. "Just what did you let your doctors do to me that you feel the need worry this much? Did you let them use leaches? Please tell me there weren't any leaches. I think our friendship will end if there were leaches."

Her face turned to stone. "Jessica… my doctors did not do anything to you."

A pit formed in my stomach.

From behind me, I could hear United States cough. "Um Chesapeake? I'm in the middle of a funeral. Could you have some respect?"

Chesapeake wordlessly thrust me forward. I struggled, but was unable to free myself from her grasp. I was dropped into United States hand, and she held me up to her face.

She went bone white and dropped her book into the longboat. "Oh my…"

"What is going on?" I demanded, feeling pissed. "Who died? Why are you freaking out?"

"You died."

"What? No I didn't." I denied, anger welling up from my chest. "I think I would have noticed if I'd died. If this is your idea of a joke, it isn't funny."

United States handed me back to Chesapeake, and wordlessly unwrapped the figure covered in the flag.

My heart stopped. Yup. That was me. That was my dead body underneath the flag. I did _not_ look pretty. I actually looked so unpretty, I made myself feel ill. Because, you know, my dead body was a mess and it was _my dead body_. There were bloody holes in my chest that went all the way through and those were some mighty big holes you've got there Jessica.

"Jessica, from your perspective, tell me exactly what happened." United States ordered as she _wrapped my dead body back up_.

I stared down at my corpse, feeling very hollow inside. "We were at the airfield. The second Abyssal aircraft turned and opened fire on us. I thought I'd tripped but, well, I guess that didn't happen. Then I woke up aboard Chesapeake."

Chesapeake gasped. "The rest of my crew, the ones I lost, they're back as well." She then frowned. "They seem to be stumbling about like drunkards."

I heard a shout of glee from the other longboat. "Gals! You'll never guess what just happened! My dead crew just came back to life! It's like Lazarus, only without Jesus and it's only been a single day. Truly our cause is righteous!"

The other longboat exploded into commotion, as everyone in it seemed to start talking all at the same time. I ignored them, focusing mostly on the body down below me.

"So what happens now?" I asked absently. Had I turned into a ghost? Was I even truly Jessica, or just something that _thought_ she was Jessica? I felt like I was Jessica, but was that a lie? Was the fridge horror interpretation of the _Star Trek_ transporters back on the table?

How on earth was I going to explain this to my parents? I couldn't just hide it from them, it's not like I could say, _'Sorry everyone, I can't attend Thanksgiving this year because I've come down with a strong case of death'_. Of course, I also couldn't say _'What I'm most thankful for is life, because after coming down with a short case of death, I realized just how valuable the time we have is'_. I also couldn't not say anything, because my parents always knew when I was hiding something.

Always.

United States proceeded to lift my dead body up and dump it over the side of the boat.

Something inside me burned. "What did you do that for! You just dumped me into the ocean!"

She began dumping the other, smaller figures into the water. "Firstly, burial at sea is a perfectly proper burial. Secondly, we can't lug your decaying corpse along with us, that's unhealthy. Do you want to make us all ill?"

Well, this brought a whole new meaning to the phrase, 'can't take it with you'. Apparently clothes were on the list of what you could take, but your old body wasn't. I felt mildly depressed as I watched myself sink beneath the waves.

"So…" I asked. "What even am I anymore? Chesapeake, if you go full-sized am I going to vanish like the rest of your crew? If I don't, can I return to normal size or is it the shrunk life for me for now on? Do you think I'll be able to collect my own life insurance policy, or is that fraud? Does the military have some sort of worker's compensation?"

"Let's," Chesapeake began with a hiccup, "let's just focus on the fact that you're alive. We're all alive. We all got off that island and survived."

A/N: Forgive me if the funeral passage is off, I've never attended a burial at sea.


	21. Chapter 19

~~~Jessica~~~

I drifted, bobbing up and down in the water. Above me an ocean wave loomed, appearing to grow larger as it approached. It carried me up, and then back down as it flowed past me. For a moment I closed my eyes and pretended I was simply in some rough water, that everything was fine.

"Jessica, are you alright?"

I rolled onto my back and stared up at the towering form of Chesapeake. The flicker in her eyes was a mere shadow of its former bonfire-self, but it still enhanced her already intimidating visage.

"No, not really." I said. "The whole 'you go big to make Jessica big as well' trick didn't work this time. I'm stuck this height for now… possibly forever. How would you feel if you were forced to spend the rest of your days at a thirtieth of your original height?"

Chesapeake gave me a deadpan stare. "It's a terrible tragedy I somehow live through."

My cheeks flushed red. "Oh yeah, you used to be what, one or two hundred feet tall? How do you deal with it, becoming so small?"

Chesapeake reached down and plucked me out of the water with one of her hands. "What is there to deal with? I sail, just as I did before. I engage in battle, just as I did before. I enjoy being in the company of my sisters, just as I did before."

Oh, well that wasn't helpful at all. I rolled my eyes as she sat me on her shoulder. "You might be small compared to a ship, but your size is perfectly normal for a human. I am small compared to a ship, and I'm also small compared to a human."

"True." Chesapeake said as she reentered our longboat. "Think of it another way though. You have been given an incredible gift, not too many people can say they've survived their own funeral."

I snorted as I wrung the water out of my toga. Hm, I had appeared back on Chesapeake in this toga. Was it my official uniform, or was it a part of me now? Could I even take it off? I almost started to disrobe (or is it distoga?), but thought better of it when I remembered that we weren't alone in the longboat.

I swung my body around to view the others in the longboat with us. Most of the human occupants were busy doing not much of anything, but Arthur was staring at me intently. I nervously raised a hand and waved at him.

"Hey." I said, not really knowing what else to say.

"Hey." He replied.

For a moment we gazed at each other. Then Arthur looked down at his arm and started picking hairs out of it.

After that riveting conversation, my gaze then connected with that of the small brown-haired girl in a tattered blue coat. Her hands were bound together, her legs were bound together, and her mouth was gagged.

"Hey." I said.

Her eyes narrowed at me.

I figured she wouldn't make much of a conversationalist, so I turned to the other figure I hadn't met before today.

Kearsarge was very different from the frigates I'd come to know. While Chesapeake and her sisters appeared to be women of average height in their early twenties, Kearsarge looked to be a short girl in her late teens. Prior to Chesapeake's Abyssalization, the sisters had all had brown hair and brown eyes. Kearsarge had black hair and blue eyes. The frigates seemed to have an undershirt of some kind on underneath their uniform, while Kearsarge had some sort of chain-link mesh beneath her tattered clothes. Finally, Kearsarge looked distinctly uninterested in anything and everything going on around her. She looked kind of sad as well.

"Hey." I said, trying to lock eyes with her. She didn't look up though. I glanced down at the bottom of the longboat beneath me, and judged the distance as 'way too fucking far' for me to jump down safely.

"Hey Kearsarge." I tried.

She looked up, briefly glancing around before laying her eyes on me. "Yes?"

"How are you doing?" I asked. She _had_ been the one of us trapped in a hole in the ground for months. Maybe even a year, Harper hadn't been clear on how long Kearsarge had been there.

"Good." She said, looking back down.

Did she not understand I was trying to make small-talk? Oh, that was a pun now.

"How's the weather?" I prodded.

She didn't even look up. "Nice."

Well these conversations were already off to a great start. If I had a quarter for every single-word response I'd gotten, I'd have a dollar already.

"Uh, do you have anything you want to talk about?"

"Not really."

Two words. While that was progress, I needed to break out the big guns. "What's a Kearsarge anyways?"

If you want someone to talk a lot, ask them about themselves.

She looked up at me, and for a brief moment a ghost of a smile came across her face. "It's a mountain in New Hampshire. I've heard it's beautiful."

I nodded as if I'd heard it was beautiful as well. "Cool. Have you ever been there before?"

Kearsarge laughed. "Of course not, it's over sixty miles inland. I've never even seen it."

I laughed, pretending that I hadn't already guessed that. "Well do you want to?"

"What?"

I repeated myself. "Do you want to? We aren't going to be stuck in the Pacific Ocean forever, how about we all go to Kearsarge mountain in New Hampshire some time after we get back. We can make it a road trip."

"I'd like that." Kearsarge said with a wistful smile. "I'd really like to do that."

"You know what?" I said, raising my voice. "We should all do that once we get back. First, we'll go with United States to visit the first bit of the United States we come across. Then we'll drop off Alabama at a prison or military base in Alabama. After that we can go with Chesapeake to the Chesapeake. Then we drive up to Mount Kearsarge with Kearsarge. We can walk with Hopkins to go visit where Hopkins lived, wherever that was. We'll finish it all off with… uh… Constellation, I'm pretty sure NASA won't let us borrow a rocket."

Constellation, who was looming over Alabama like a prison guard, frowned at me. "While I'm not sure what NASA is, I would advise against using a rocket to visit my namesake. I was named after the stars in the American flag."

Hm. "Well, we can finish off our grand tour of… apparently the east coast of America, by going to D.C. I think the Smithsonian's got the Star-Spangled Banner somewhere in that town. I think I remember seeing it on a school field trip."

I turned to face my fellow humans. "What do you think about it guys and gals? You want to come on the Great Shipgirl Roadtrip?"

None of them were paying much attention to me. Arthur gave another small wave, but that was it. I frowned. "Guys?"

A shard of ice pierced my heart as I remembered that they couldn't understand me. They probably weren't even my fellow humans anymore. I'd have to actually be human for that to be the case.

"Jessica?"

I looked up to see Chesapeake looking down at me with concern.

I sighed. "It's taking a while for it to sink in that this is probably permanent. It's hard to rope people into your posse when all they can hear is 'hey'."

"I could translate for you." She offered. "Whenever you need to talk to another human, you could just ask me to help."

I gave her a small smile. "That could work."

~~~.~~~

As it turns out, attendance for the Great American Shipgirl Roadtrip was going to be slim. Most of the other humans wanted to just go home, and most of them didn't even live in America. Sue, who lived in Maine, promised to come with us to see Mount Kearsarge, but apart from that it'd just be me and the shipgirls.

It was evening now, and I was definitely going to be bunking with the rest of Chesapeake's crew. No matter my feelings on my current status, I did not need to have Arthur try to kick me to death again when I was trying to sleep. It'd also been a while since I'd slept in a hammock (the time after my resurrection notwithstanding), and it sort of had that vacation-y allure to it.

So I'd clambered down the hatches, and had just made my way onto the Gun Deck when hands grabbed me from behind. Startled, I jumped and nearly fell down the stairs to the Berth Deck, but the hands pulled me back. I spun around to find myself face-to-face with Captain 1.

"We need to talk." She stated.

Before I could ask her why she had to ambush me instead of, you know, _just asking for help_ like a normal human being spooky ghost crewwoman, I was dragged off.

The captain's cabin on Chesapeake was a set of three rooms, two smaller ones on either side of a larger room. When I'd first come aboard, I'd run and hid myself in that larger room. Now I was being dragged into the room on the starboard side, which had a hammock and a small dresser packed into the tiny room.

Captain 1 unceremoniously dropped me by the hammock before throwing open the dresser drawers and rummaging through them.

"In the future, can you refrain from kidnapping me?" I grumped.

"This is important!" She defended, opening up a different drawer and throwing cape after cape after cape out of it.

"Do you seriously have a cape drawer?" I asked, unsure if I should be horrified or impressed.

"Who doesn't have a cape drawer?" Captain 1 asked sarcastically. "The answer, of course, are capeless beings who have never found life's greatest joy."

She then turned and eyed me critically. "I don't think any of mine would look good on you. You're more of a fur cape person than a cloth cape person."

"Thanks?" I offered hesitantly.

She turned back and pulled out a bundle of cloth. Rapidly unwrapping it, she revealed it to be a small mirror. She held it up to her face, nodded once, and thrust it into my hands.

"Look at yourself." She ordered, her red eyes burning intensely.

I gulped. With shaking hands, I lifted up the mirror to my face and looked into it. Fearful of what I might find, I was pleasantly surprised to see that I didn't have a second nose growing in the center of my forehead, or an ugly scar, or an outbreak of some sort. In fact, everything about my face looked normal- MY EYES WERE RED!

I screamed and dropped the mirror. In an impressive display of agility, Captain 1's hand shot out and grabbed the mirror mere inches from the floor.

In fact it was so impressive I paused in my screaming. "Nice catch." I complimented, before I resumed screaming at the top of my lungs.

Captain 1 rolled her eyes and put her hand over my mouth. "If I take my hand off, will you stop screaming?"

I licked her hand, and she made a face at me. "I'm serious, I need to know if you can calm down."

I nodded, and the captain removed her hand. I almost moved to scream again, but thought better of it.

"What's happening to me?" I asked hesitantly.

"You mean what's happening to us?" Captain 1 corrected. "While the symptoms seem less pronounced in you, it seems to be affecting all of this ship's crew who died. It seems very similar to what was affecting Chesapeake prior to the battle."

Oh no, she couldn't possibly mean what I thought she meant. "No, don't tell me."

Captain 1 gave me a shit-eating grin. "I know that this is a bad time, but there's never a good time to learn that you have Abyssal cancer. Congratulations Jessica, you have Abyssal cancer."

I screamed, then paused. "Wait, did you just seriously quote me to me? Is this revenge for me not breaking that news to Chesapeake gently, because I was under a lot of pressure then."

Captain 1 shrugged. "You deserved it. Besides, it's not like we haven't already discovered a treatment."

Really? I narrowed my eyes suspiciously. "Why do I find it strange that you, the ghost of some old dead white guys from the 1800's, have found a cure for cancer?"

Captain 1 frowned at me. "First, I want you to know that I find that description hurtful, even if there is a possibility that it is true. I am a captain of the navy, I deserve to be called such. Second, Alabama proved that either shooting or removing the heart of the problem will stop the spread, and after that it's just a matter of clean up."

"No! Just no! We are not firing a gun or cannon into my chest in an attempt to _cure cancer_. That sounds like a dumb idea, and you should be ashamed." I chided.

She shrugged. "We could always have the ship's doctor attempt to remove it surgically."

I about had a heart attack. "You keep that leach-loving asshole away from me! Can we just pretend it doesn't exist and forget this conversation ever happened until we reach safety, where _modern_ doctors can deal with it?"

"Of course."

"Wait, seriously?"

"No."

I sighed. "Come to me if you have a plan that doesn't involve me getting shot or going anywhere near your ship's doctor, and I might do it. Otherwise, the answer is no."

Captain 1's expression darkened. "I'll let this slide as it pertains to your health, but the crew of this ship fall under my command. That includes you now. In any case, I still need to talk to the ship's doctor to see if operating to remove the problem is even possible before any of this can move forwards."

Fucking Abyssals and their shitty coral cancer.

"I'll try to be more respectful." I sighed. "Or at least find a more tactful way to say no."

Captain 1's expression returned to its typical bright and cheery demeanor. "Great! Now go get yourself some sleep, you look tired and I did give you some terrible news."


	22. Chapter 20

Jessica

I lazily swung in the hammock I'd claimed. Life was so much easier when all you had to worry about was whether or not today would be the day the hammock would come loose. Dropping a few feet to hit the deck below wouldn't really hurt me, maybe stun me for a moment at the most, but it was a small fear that family vacations had drilled into me from a young age. You can't trust hammocks, they'll always let you down. Eventually.

I should probably have gotten out of bed hammock several hours ago to eat breakfast. By now it was almost lunchtime, and my stomach was begging for food. However, I found it hard to drag up the will to go eat. Eating would require that I venture forth beyond Chesapeake's hull and expose myself to everyone.

I didn't feel any different at the moment, but could I really trust my senses anymore? Chesapeake had fought the urge to kill people, including me, on multiple occasions because her senses told her to. Would I get those urges too? Thinking back to yesterday, I hadn't had any urges to actually murder anyone. There had been a time or two that I'd felt a burn in my chest when I was angry though. It had felt sort of like heartburn.

That's just one more thing for me to blame on the Abyssals. I had always thought heartburn to be one of the great evils in the world, and now I had proof. Abyssals and heartburn were teaming up to ruin my life. It was probably the beginning of an alliance of evil, and only Pepto-Bismol or another antacid could stop them.

Ah fuck it. Moping is for other people. Captain 1 had said that it didn't seem to be affecting me as badly as it was her and the other crewwomen, and none of them were bumming it out in the hammocks like I was. Well, a few were, but they were just Chesapeake's night shift getting some rest. Captain 1 was up and about, I could see her wandering around the deck. No wait, she wasn't wandering, she was checking the hammocks for someone. Curious, I watched as she puttered around for a moment before we locked eyes.

She immediately made a beeline for me. As she got closer I noted that there was more of a glow in her wine-red eyes than there had been yesterday. That was worrying. Would mine start to glow as well? Were there any sunglasses around here that I could use to hide it if they did?

"Did you need something?" I asked when she came to a stop next to my hammock.

"I'd heard that one of the crew hadn't eaten breakfast this morning." She commented. "I was worried that you might have taken the news from last night… poorly."

I snorted. "I certainly didn't take it well, but one missed meal is enough for this girl. I think I'm going to drag myself out of here and snack on a grain of rice the size of my head."

She frowned down at me. "Are having issues with the size of your food? Do you realize that you are entitled to a portion from this ship's rations?"

Huh. Well I guess Chesapeake's crew had to eat as well. "Is it rice?" I asked tentatively. I'd had rice for breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the past two weeks.

She shook her head.

"Sold."

~~~.~~~

If I had known exactly _what_ Captain 1 was going to try and feed me, I wouldn't have accepted her invitation to eat lunch with her. Calling what was on my plate meat was probably being a bit too generous, I wasn't even certain if it was food. Captain 1 looked to be equally unenthusiastic about the food, her face set in a gloomy expression.

We were both staring at the other's plate, hoping that they would be the first one to take the plunge and taste-test the _thing_ we'd been given. Unfortunately, neither of us would give in. After we wasted a few more minutes in this manner, I spoke up. "What is this?"

Captain 1 tentatively poked her portion with a fork. "I honestly don't know."

Well that was the exact opposite of comforting. "You eat this stuff without knowing what it is?" I asked, as I leaned back. Was that what people did in the olden days? Did they just eat anything that vaguely looked like food they came across?

"It's my first time eating it. I _think_ it might be pork." Captain 1 defended, before lowering her voice. "I had no control over what rations were chosen for this cruise. When we… appeared, food and water was already in the hold. Unfortunately, almost all the good rations were lost in the battle against Alabama."

Of course they were.

"You know, I think I understand Chesapeake's shear anger towards Alabama a bit better now." I said. "No one should be forced to eat this."

Captain 1 made a hesitant nod. She then worked up the courage to actually spear some of the substance on her plate with a fork, and lifted it to her mouth. I held my breath as she first took a small bite, and then a larger one. Soon she was chewing it.

"Well?" I asked eagerly. "How is it?"

She swallowed. "It is much better than my expectations."

With that ringing endorsement, I immediately cut myself a large slice and shoved it down my throat. I was eager to eat something, _anything_ that wasn't rice.

When the food entered my mouth, I almost choked. It wasn't bad per say, it was just the most bland meat imaginable. If cardboard ever came to life, this would be its meat. Not good, not bad, just bland.

Captain 1 cackled in her chair. "The look on your face is beautiful! I never said it was good, merely that it wasn't as bad as I thought."

~~~.~~~

After I finished eating lunch, I loitered about on Chesapeake. I wasn't hiding or moping, I was just… waiting for the right time to show off my new eyes and break the news to everyone else that I had caught the Abyssals from Chesapeake.

Yes, that's my story and I was sticking to it. There's nothing wrong with me taking my time. I could reveal it at any time I wanted. Just not now.

That evening a fogbank rolled in. It was spooky and suspicious enough that we'd decided to put into action plan 'there's nothing suspicious about Chesapeake 2: Electric Boogaloo, now with two longboats.'

I decided to stay with Chesapeake, arguing that I could be the literal eyes on the back of her head. Captain 2 pointed out that she and the rest of the crew members were perfectly capable of doing that. I pointed out that none of them had had laser eye surgery to fix their nearsightedness improve their eyesight.

To my relief, Captain 2 didn't have an answer to that aside from asking what a laser was.

Hours passed and nothing happened. First sunset, then twilight, and finally dusk passed with nothing to show for our paranoia. The fog still persisted though, masking the stars and obscuring the moon. Two other schmucks from Chesapeake's crew were on watch with me on top of her head. I didn't know their names, only that neither of them were going through the same bullshit Abyssal cancer thing I was.

Come to think of it, did Chesapeake's crew even have names? None of them had ever introduced themselves beyond the rank they held.

"Hey, do either of you two actually have a name?" I asked, turning to crewwoman on my left.

She turned and looked at me like I'd just asked her if pigs could fly. Wordlessly she shook her head.

"Of course I do!" The other responded from behind. "It's Blair."

"Wait, you have a name?" Asked the first crewwoman.

"You don't?" Asked the second.

The three of us sat in silence. This had answered one question and raised many others. I was about to ask if she'd been given the name or if she'd picked it when the sound of a distant explosion rung out.

 **Boom!**

I turned in the direction the sound came from and looked out into the foggy darkness.

 **Boom! Boom! Boom!**

A series of explosions followed, then paused. For a few minutes there was silence, and then the explosions began again.

 **Boom! Boom! Boom!**

For about ten minutes after the last explosion, there was silence. Apart from our breathing, the rustling of the waves, and the rocking of the longboats, there wasn't a sound to be heard. Those explosions hadn't sounded too distant, which was worrying. It meant that there were Abyssals around here shooting at something.

The bigger question was _what_ they were shooting at. Where they just practicing, or had they come across some other poor saps wandering through the heart of Abyssal territory?

"Should I go investigate?" Chesapeake wondered aloud.

"No, don't do that." Called United States from inside one of the longboats. "We don't want to drag these two dinky little longboats into the middle of a battle, and if you leave us behind to go by yourself you'll never find your way back in this fog. We should wait until morning."

That was when I spotted movement. I squinted out into the darkness, looking for any signs that what I'd seen was more than just a trick of my eyes.

There! Just a stone's throw away from us was a shadow darting below the surface of the waves. It was heading right towards us.

"There's something in the water!" I cried.

Chesapeake responded instantly. "Where?"

"Just ahead of you!"

Before Chesapeake could react, a figure pulled itself up onto the surface of the water. It was clearly an Abyssal, with glowing yellow eyes and a twisted and damaged… _something_ made of metal on her back. She was shaking, and although much of her face was hidden behind a scuba style breathing apparatus, I could see she was terrified.

The other lookouts and I quickly hid ourselves amongst Chesapeake's hair.

"You can fight, can't you?" The Abyssal begged. "You feel odd, but you can still fight, can't you sister?"

"Uh, yes?" Chesapeake responded hesitantly.

"Great! Hold them off so I can escape." The Abyssal said.

Before Chesapeake could respond, the Abyssal shoved her way past us and ran off into the darkness.

Well that was somewhat informative. Someone was shooting at the Abyssals, not the other way around. Hope began to fill my chest. There couldn't be other shipgirls or friendly naval vessels this far into Abyssal territory, could there?

"Slow down! We can't see where we're going!" Called a female voice from the direction the Abyssal was running away from.

"I don't need to see where I'm going! I've got radar for that!" Responded another voice that sounded extremely close.

"If you'd look at your radar you'd notice that there's something right in front of you!" Pleaded the first.

The second voice ignored the first, instead roaring "GET BACK HERE!" as she barreled into view. She was a tall woman, and through the darkness I could make out the outline of some metal ship bits hanging off her back and an absolutely _massive_ gun turret held in her hand.

"Look out!" I desperately warned, but it was too late. Chesapeake failed to dodge out of the way by a hair. The newcomer's broad shoulders clipped Chesapeake's nose as the girl zoomed past us without stopping.

That small hit was somehow more than enough to send Chesapeake airborne, and I lost my grip on her hair and fell into the ocean.

I struggled back up to the surface and coughed out a mouthful of water. Chesapeake was kneeling and clutching her nose and a new, smaller figure was standing over her. The other two lookouts were still on top of Chesapeake, one dangling from her hair and the other clinging to her fin.

"Oh I'm so sorry, I'm sure New York would have been more careful if she'd known there were other shipgirls out here." The new girl said.

"I think she broke my bowsprit." Chesapeake mumbled.

"Hey! A little help here!" I called out as I treaded water. I was a perfectly good swimmer, but with arms less than an inch long I couldn't really get anywhere fast under my own power. It'd take me ten minutes or so to get back to Chesapeake on my own.

The new girl reached over and plucked me out of the water. She then held me out to Chesapeake, who pulled her hands away from her face to reveal a bloody nose and looked up. Her red eyes faintly glowed and flickered like miniature lighthouses in the dark.

"Oh. _Oh._ " Said the new girl.

Oh shit, the A(byssal)-bomb had been dropped. The hand I was standing on was pulled back as the girl backed away from Chesapeake while drawing a miniature gun turret from her side like a pistol. As she raised it to point at Chesapeake, I knew that I had to act and take control of this situation. I had to prevent it from becoming a train wreck.

Somehow.

"Whoa whoa whoa, let's just hold on for a moment." I cried as I jumped up and down on the girl's hand to grab her attention. "Ease up there cowgirl, we're going to need you to ix-nay on the illing-kay, become one with your inner hippie, and klaatu barada nikto!"

"But-" The girl began.

"No buts!" I demanded, my chest growing warm. "We're going to act like calm, rational adults rather than the high-strung boatpeople and shrunken humans we are. Calm, rational adults don't fight each other when they first meet, they introduce themselves and shake hands. Here, I'll go first. My name is Jessica. Now I know I just said rational adults shake hands, but allowances must be made for the vertically challenged and I'll just have to give you a high-five instead."

I slapped my hand against the girl's thumb. "There! Now what's your name?"

"O'Bannon." The girl said vacantly, probably out of reflex. "I'm sorry, but are we going to ignore the elephant in the room and-"

"Nice to meet you O'Bannon." I interrupted loudly. "Now let me introduce you to Chesapeake. Chesapeake, O'Bannon. O'Bannon, Chesapeake. Now shake hands."

"But-"

"I SAID SHAKE HANDS!" I roared, a fire burning in my chest.

"Okay, okay!"

O'Bannon tentatively held out her hand, and a very nonplussed Chesapeake took it. The two proceeded to exchange the most awkward handshake the world had ever seen.

"Charmed." Chesapeake drawled flatly.

"Great!" I chirped, the fire in my chest dying down. "Now that we're all friends…"

"Since when were we friends?" Chesapeake muttered.

"Now that we're all friends…" I repeated a little louder, glaring at my Abyssal companion. I was going to force a friendship between these two if I had to shove it down both their throats. "You see O'Bannon, Chesapeake and I are in a bit of a bind and I think you can help us out."

"Uh, I don't think I should be agreeing to anything."

Great, she was getting skittish. I decided to try buttering her up.

"O'Bannon, you're a cruiser, right?" I guessed after staring at her ship bits for a moment. Cruisers were a type of warship, right? I think some of the modern ones shot missiles. "You're a big, strong shipgirl, right?"

She blushed. "No, I'm just a destroyer. I'd like to think I'm strong though, and I do have more horsepower in my engines than New York."

"I think what Jessica is trying to say," called Constellation as she sat up in the longboat, "Is that my sisters and I need some help escorting these people to safety."

"I can help with escorting!" Cried Hopkins as she shot up like a rocket. "Just say the word and I'll be in the water!"

"Hopkins, you're too damaged to be seaworthy." Admonished United States, who stood up and put a hand on her shoulder to keep her still.

"That doesn't matter, I can swim now. Nothing can stop me!"

As the longboats transformed from two derelicts into the crowded lifeboats they were, O'Bannon whipped her head between them and Chesapeake. Her head went back and forth, back and forth.

"You're all… traveling together?" She asked.

I nodded furiously. "Yes! Chesapeake is great for when we need to sneak past Abyssals, they all think she's really into the sisterhood of the traveling murderboats."

O'Bannon lifted me up to her face and studied me for a moment, as if looking for signs of a lie. I plastered on the biggest smile I could manage and hoped it looked as genuine as it felt.

"Are you what an Abyssal fairy looks like?" She coed at me. "The toga is just adorable!"

"Hey! Watch it, I'm a grown-ass woman! Don't you dare coo at me!" I screeched at her. "Also, I'm not a fairy. Wings would be awesome, but I don't have them."

O'Bannon ignored me and glanced down at Chesapeake. "I honestly think the red eyes are her cutest aspect."

My eyes widened and I began to panic. That was supposed to stay secret darn you!

"Red eyes?" Chesapeake asked. Quick as a snake, she snatched me out of O'Bannon's hand. "Jessica, is there something you've forgotten to tell me?"

I tried to pry myself from her grip, but it was no use, her fingers were too strong. Curse my tiny arms and legs!

"Uh, it turns out that a side-effect of me and your crew dying and getting better was that we caught a milder form of your Abyssal cancer." I said nervously.

O'Bannon gasped behind me. "Oh I'm so sorry to hear that. You have my condolences."

"Why didn't you tell me this?" Chesapeake demanded.

"Look, instead of focusing on something that I have completely under control, why don't we focus on our new best friend?"

Chesapeake was not swayed by my logical and well-thought out argument. "How do I know you have it under control, seeing as you haven't informed me about it in the first place? Me, your commanding officer."

"Captain 1 totally knows about it already. I thought she'd tell you." I said. When in doubt and where possible, pass the buck along. "Also, I thought that the whole me working for you was just a temporary gig."

Chesapeake went rigid, and started muttering to herself.

"Hey O'Bannon!" Called out the voice I now knew belonged to New York. "That sub vanished. She was a tricky one, made me trip right before she got away, and before that I ran into something around here."

A few seconds later she appeared out of the fog. Thankfully she didn't ram any of us this time. Compared to O'Bannon she was much taller and older, though it was hard to make out details in the darkness.

"Look New York! I found people! Real, live people!" O'Bannon said excitedly, pointing back at the longboats. "I told you that eating my lucky spud would help us out!"

"That something you ran into was me." Chesapeake angrily yelled.

New York froze. "O'Bannon," she said in a low voice, "do you realize that there's an Abyssal next to you?"

"She seems nice." The destroyer defended. "Can't we extend them the potato of friendship?"

New York frowned. "You and your damn potatoes."

"Can I have the potato of friendship?" I asked, eager to solidify our status as friends instead of foes.

"It's too big for you to hold."

"Wait, you're talking about an actual, non-metaphorical potato?" I asked curiously.

O'Bannon nodded. "I figured it'd be better than a hand because you could eat it if you're hungry." She then turned back to New York. "Please? She seems nice enough and they claim they've been traveling together."

New York glanced between Chesapeake and the longboats, then sighed. "The captain isn't going to like this at all, but we definitely can't leave behind a bunch of shipgirls and humans."

I pumped my fist in victory.


	23. Chapter 21

~~~Jessica~~~

"Alright," said New York as she paced in front of us. "I don't know what you all are doing out here in the middle of Abyssal territory, but if you want to get out of here alive you need to listen up."

"I can tell you what we were doing out here!" I said, raising my hand and jumping up and down on top of Chesapeake's hand.

New York glared at me. "We can do story time with fairies later."

I glared back, but before the glaring contest between us could be settled Chesapeake lifted me up and put me back on top of her head.

"First, I want that shipgirl untied." She said, gesturing towards the boat where Kearsarge sat watching over her nemesis.

"That's Alabama, she worked for the Abyssals." Constellation supplied.

New York blinked. "First, I want that shipgirl to remain tied." She amended. I chuckled.

New York then turned to her companion. "O'Bannon, why don't you go over there and report back to Iowa?" She asked, waving her hand vaguely towards the sea away from us.

Iowa? I'd heard of that before. I hadn't really kept up with the navy at any point in my life, but I did google 'What's that big ship with guns out my LA window?' once. It'd be nice to have a giant battleship.

O'Bannon fidgeted. "Uh, I thought you were in charge and supposed to handle communication?" She asked.

"I'm delegating. Just go over there." New York said, waving at the sea a little ways off from us.

"If you say so."

As soon as O'Bannon left, New York strode right up to us and leaned forward well into Chesapeake's personal space. "I don't know what your game is, but I'll play it for now. You step a single toe out of line and I'll deal with you myself."

A cold chill went down my spine. Sure, we'd come to terms with the fact that Chesapeake was an Abyssal (somewhat) and made it work, but everyone else? Abyssals were the big bad evil enemy. That meant Chesapeake was the big bad evil enemy.

We might not all have a happy welcome waiting for us once we got out of this.

While I was having my terrible realization, Constellation was edging herself between Chesapeake and New York. "Are you threatening my sister?" She demanded.

"That depends. How likely is she to try and kill us all?"

Oh, that was going to strike a nerve.

"Why you! How likely do you think it is O'Bannon would try to kill us?" She demanded.

O'Bannon, who'd just returned from doing… [i]something [/i]with what might have been a phone, let out a sharp squeak.

"O'Bannon would never betray us." New York stated harshly.

"Neither would Chesapeake!"

"She's an Abyssal!"

"She's my [i]sister!"[/i]

United States interrupted them before things could devolve further. "Calm down, we're all on the same side here. Now it's clear you have some reservations about Chesapeake, but I can assure you that she has proven her loyalty in battle-"

"She's still armed? What is wrong with you!" New York roared. "In case you haven't noticed, we're at war! She's disarming or we're leaving her here."

"Yes, but she's on our side!"

"Do you really believe that?"

"Of course!"

"I'll do it." Chesapeake said quietly.

"Chesapeake is – wait, what?" Asked Constellation.

I could hear Chesapeake take in a deep breath before repeating herself in a louder voice. "I said I'll do it. If me disarming ensures that all of us get to safety, it's a small price to pay."

"You don't have to do that Chesapeake, you shouldn't have to do that." Constellation protested. "I'm sure we can work something out with New York."

"The only thing you can work out with me is whether I'm going to disarm her the easy way or the hard way." New York responded bluntly.

"Don't worry, it'll be okay. After all, I have you two to protect me, right?" Chesapeake said, her voice cracking at the end of her sentence.

"We will." United States assured her, before glaring at New York. "We will. I want your word that if she does this Chesapeake won't be harmed."

New York shrugged. "As long as she's cooperating and not trying to kill us she'll be fine."

"Your word." United States repeated.

New York sighed and rolled her eyes. "Fine. You have my word."

~~~.~~~

New York sent a boarding crew over to make sure Chesapeake was disarmed 'properly'. For convenience's sake they settled on having her dump all her gunpowder into the ocean.

"I believe this is the last of it." Said the head of the boarding crew. "We'll begin removing the gunpowder now."

New York's boarding crew turned out to be two dozen marines with rifles. I hadn't even realized shipgirl marines were a thing, but apparently they were. It was kind of awkward, especially once I realized the girls who I'd been seeing on Chesapeake for days that wore a bit of red in their uniforms were [i]Chesapeake's[/i] marines.

Chesapeake's second captain sighed. "Is it really necessary to remove the powder reserved for small arms?"

"All gunpowder is to be removed." Stated the head of New York's marines.

"Yes, yes," She said, waving her arm dismissively, "You've mentioned that. However, we can't use dueling pistols without gunpowder."

"Why would you need to use dueling pistols?"

"Wellllll…" She said loudly, dragging out the word to cover the sound of Captain One cracking open one of the powder barrels. "For dueling of course. There's one scheduled for tomorrow at noon."

The entire boarding party turned to stare at her. "Why are you in a duel?"

"Oh I'm not in a duel, I detest the practice." She said as Captain One and several others began scooping powder into large socks. "It's between Lieutenants Ashley and Morgan. After Morgan complained about the quality of our food, Ashley spread rumors that any true sailor would eat whatever food was provided. Morgan responded by grinding up some Abyssal coral into a powder and sprinkling it over her next meal, which she ate in front of Ashley. She then challenged her to a duel."

"She ate WHAT?" I yelled. Seriously, what? I had no idea what eating ground up Abyssal cancer would do to someone, but it couldn't be good.

She gave a solemn nod as Captain One began reattaching the lid onto the now half-empty barrel and the other crewmembers that had accompanied her began quietly sneaking away, presumably to hide the powder-socks elsewhere. "Yes, Morgan is currently incoherent and running a high fever. Her second is taking her place for the duel. I suppose it will have to be fought with cutlasses…"

~~~.~~~

After the last last barrel of gunpowder was dumped overboard and the boarding party left, everyone turned to face New York expectantly.

"Alright, what was it Nautilus said way back when?" She mumbled.

In the distance behind her the surface of the water was breached. It was a thin black tower, one that even to my untrained eye heralded a submarine's arrival.

New York snapped her fingers and then pointed her thumb behind herself. "Oh yeah. If you hate darkness, confined spaces, or being underwater, too bad. Meet USS Iowa, SSN-797 and your ticket out of here."

~~~.~~~

So, I didn't intend the wait to be this long. Sorry this isn't more substantial, I ended up chopping the majority of the chapter out as irrelevant or as needing to go into the next chapter and a different viewpoint. I don't feel this is entirely up to my usual standard, but I've been writing and rewriting this forever and I just need to get past this part, this bit was extremely demotivating to write but necessary to the plot of the story.


End file.
